Citizen Soldiers
by SureFireWinners
Summary: Roxanna Spark's life was normal before she accidentally hacked a SHIELD computer system and was brought in to be an agent. Agent Rhea King helps to integrate her into the Avengers initiative but she is also hiding something herself. Roxanna is then taken under the wing of Bruce Banner and Tony Stark as a technician, crucial to finding and defeating Loki. Steve Rogers/OC, Thor/OC
1. The Beginnings of an Agent

**Disclaimer: Neither I nor my co-author own the Avengers. All rights go to Marvel and Stan Lee for creating such amazing characters and back stories, and all rights go to Disney for producing an AMAZING movie. **

**Author's Note: My friend and I loved the movie so much we wanted to write our own story for it. Obviously the movie is not out yet so therefore we have no way to get the exact script for it. So we've written what we know best of the movie. So please, bear with us on this. We love criticism as long as it's helpful, but please do not bash our story with this. We really love it, and we're really trying our hardest. All of this is off of memory. So it's very hard. Thank you! And now please enjoy our first chapter!**

"Rhea!" Natasha Romanoff called as she made her way over to the jet that had just landed on the deck of the SHIELD Headquarters.

Rhea walked down the ramp onto the deck from the jet and grinned at the redhead walking towards her. Her own strawberry blonde hair was slowly being pulled out of its braid by the wind, little wisps of it framing her face by the time Natasha had stopped in front of her. Rhea grinned at her fellow spy as Natasha nodded to someone behind the strawberry blonde. Rhea turned to see who she was greeting and saw a tall man with blonde hair and bright blue eyes walking down the ramp as well, another agent beside him.

The man with blonde hair was Steve Rogers, or Captain America as most of the world knew him by. While Colonel Nick Fury had been the one to ask him to join this project, Agent Phil Coulson had been the one to actually travel with him to SHIELD. Along the way, they had picked up Rhea King, another spy for SHIELD who had been on a mission in South America. Nick Fury had called her in for help just like he had with Natasha. Rhea had put her current mission on hold to accompany SHIELD.

"Natasha, how are things here?" Rhea asked.

"Good. I was on a mission, and they called me in," She said and Rhea nodded.

"Same," She said. Natasha stepped past Rhea to greet Steve Rogers as Phil Coulson moved into the main control room.

"Captain Rogers," She said shaking his hand. He was dressed in a plaid shirt, collared shirt tucked into his brown pants with a light brown leather jacket over it. "Good to have you aboard." Steve nodded his head in greeting as Natasha turned and noticed another man looking very uncomfortable and lost on the ship as some cadets ran past him on their training run.

"Dr. Banner," Steve said, recognizing him as he walked towards the shorter man who was wearing a purple, long-sleeved shirt and light brown slacks.

"I wasn't informed Dr. Banner would be here," Rhea said to Natasha as they stayed behind the two men.

"He assures us he has himself under control," Natasha said, even though there was an edge of uncertainty in her voice. Everyone was a little on edge at having Dr. Bruce Banner on board with them, all afraid of the unknown.

"Word is you can find the Cube," Steve said in greeting to Bruce as he shook his hand. The two girls stopped off to the side of them.

"Is that the only word on me?" Bruce asked, wringing his hands nervously. Steve gave a small smile and a nod.

"The only word I care about," He said.

"Gentlemen," Natasha said. "If you wouldn't mind stepping inside. It's going to get a little hard to breathe in a minute," She added as a loud noise could be heard, and the gurgling of water below them reached their ears.

"They want me inside a small, pressurized cabin?" Bruce asked sarcastically as both men assumed this was about to become a submarine.

Natasha and Rhea exchanged a small glance, both knowing smiles on their faces as the two men stepped towards the edge of the ship. The water sloshed up over the edges as something was raised from underneath it. Both watched as the blades began to rotate. It picked up speed as it rose higher out of the water, before slowly picking up the ship with it. It wasn't a submarine but an aircraft.

"Oh no... this is much worse," Bruce said as they both stepped away from the edge and followed the two women inside the control room. Rhea smiled warmly as she saw the director, Nick Fury. His face was still as serious as ever.

"Agent King, Agent Romanoff," he said, addressing them. Rhea half lifted her hand and waved at him, her eyes scanning the room, already looking for ways to disguise herself if the time ever came.

"Nick," Rhea replied. "Why have you brought us here?" she asked, ever direct and to the point. Nick turned to Bruce, meeting his eyes, before turning back to the group.

"Ladies and gentleman, I have brought you here to locate the Tesseract," he said, his voice quiet but commanding. No one in the room looked surprised at this piece of information but it was protocol to address the situation in a certain way. "You might be wondering why some of us in particular are here." Everyone's eyes surreptitiously glanced towards Bruce Banner. "The fastest way to relate the Tesseract is through gamma radiation-"

"And no one knows gamma radiation like he does," Natasha finished, nodding. Bruce looked slightly put out but resigned.

"If you want me to find this thing, I'll need somewhere to work. I'll have to run the amount of radiation to get a signal." he paused in his speaking to meet the group's eyes. "I'll need somewhere to work," He repeated.

Natasha stepped forward and gestured towards him. "Follow me, Dr. Banner," she said, before leading him out of the control room and down to a laboratory, installed with many laptop screens and high tech gadgetry. The rest of the group followed him as he began tapping on the computers, engrossed in his work immediately.

"I'll need to be able to access SHIELD's computers," he said without looking up, dragging an icon across a screen. Rhea glanced over at Nick Fury to see what his reaction would be. He paused for a moment before nodding.

"We'll give you whatever you need," Nick said. "The Tesseract was brought here by Thor," He added as he turned to address the others who need further explanation. "But he's worlds away so we can't count on him to help."

"One of our own men was compromised," Natasha said as she crouched down and swiped her finger across a screen, bringing up a picture of a male with short cropped hair. 'Clint Barton' was the name written beside the picture.

"Along with him, one of our excellent scientists was also put under his control. Erik Selvig," Nick explained. "We need to locate Loki and the Tesseract as soon as we can."

Maria Hill, the second-in-command to Nick Fury, walked in the lab at that moment before whispering something to Nick. He nodded to her before she walked away without a word to anyone else in the room. Natasha and Rhea glanced at him, waiting for an explanation as to what had just happened.

"Nick?" Rhea prompted.

"Dr. Banner, stay here and work on locating it," Nick said before leading the way out of the room back into the control room with Rhea, Natasha and Steve behind him. "I need you to pull up the location of this person."

"Nick, what's going on?" Rhea asked.

"Someone accessed SHIELD information that wasn't from a SHIELD office," Nick explained.

"What did they look at?" Natasha asked as she knelt down next to a computer again.

"Our list of potential hackers and threats to our organization," Maria said as she stood beside Nick at the front. "You can't track where it came from?"

"No ma'am. The signal bounced around from a few different satellites. Whoever accessed the information knew how to keep us off their trail," An agent at a computer in front of her said.

"I want you to get me the names that were specifically looked at," Nick said. "Get me addresses, phone numbers, anything you can. We'll have to pay them a visit before Loki can get to them."

"Yes sir." The agent nodded before typing at his computer and within a few moments, three names had popped up on the large screen in front of Fury; one female and two males.

The first male was older, maybe in his late forties with light brown eyes and black hair. The name beside his picture read 'Adam Michael Lane'. The second male was younger, early thirties with wire-rimmed glasses over green eyes and sandy brown hair. His name was 'Spencer Ryan Lee'. The female had curly blonde hair with big square glasses rounded at the corners, that Rhea could only describe as nerd glasses, over bright blue eyes. The name beside her picture was 'Roxanna Rae Sparks'.

"Which one was looked at more?" Nick said, needing to know who was top priority in seeing first.

"It looks like Sparks was first then Lane and then Lee," Maria said reading off the information on the computer before glancing at Nick.

"Romanoff, King, I need you to go pay Miss Sparks a visit. Take the Cap with you. If we get any information on Loki, we'll radio you," He said. "Coulson, take Michaels and Peterson with you and go pay Mr. Lane a visit. Hill, go with Johnson and Miller to Mr. Lee's. Just stake it out. Don't engage them unless you see something that looks out of the ordinary. Got it?"

Rhea nodded before exiting the control room, Steve and Natasha following her. They made their way over to the hangar containing the various aircraft used by SHIELD.

"Who's gonna drive?" she asked, a grin on her face. Natasha rolled her eyes, before opening the door of an aircraft close to her. She confidently pulled herself up and into the cockpit. Steve and Rhea followed.

"Bet the birds have changed a bit since your time, huh Captain," Rhea said, winking. Steve rolled his eyes at her.

"I barely got to fly 'the birds' before 'my time' was over, ma'am," he said, making quotation marks on the two phrases.

"Come come Captain. Big American hot shot like you and you only touched one the day you went down? I find that hard to believe, love."

Whatever Steve Rogers' reply was, it was never heard as Natasha tapped a few buttons, the engines of the small plane beginning to whir. They ran along the road that led to the edge of the ship before hitting the air.

"Type in these coordinates," Natasha said handing Rhea a small communicator that had GPS location of where Roxanna Sparks lived.

Rhea did as she was told and took the small device from Natasha before putting the information into the main GPS of the jet. The location popped up on the computer screen in front of Rhea and she sighed as she turned the small, flat screen towards Natasha so she knew where she was going.

"She lives in New York City. Smack dab in the center of it," Rhea said. "We'll have to land the jet somewhere else and walk."

"We can land it on a rooftop. This thing's pretty small," Natasha said as she pressed a button on the control panel above her head. She glanced over her shoulder at Steve and motioned behind him. "You might wanna suit up in case we're needed, Captain," She said and it was then Steve realized both women were already dressed in their SHIELD suits. He nodded and disappeared into the small room to change.

"It's gotta be weird for him," Rhea commented. "Being out of his time and all."

Natasha nodded. "Yeah, but he seems to be adjusting pretty well," The pretty redhead said with a glance over her shoulder in the direction the Captain had gone.

Rhea nodded her head and started to reply, but quickly stopped herself when Steve walked back out dressed in his Captain America uniform. She glanced back for a moment before turning back forward. His uniform had been modified slightly. The last one he wore had been more situated for the Army and their missions. This one was more suited for what SHIELD had in mind. Instead of a helmet that he had worn in the 1940's, this one had a hood attached to his suit. There were also no protection pads on his shoulders and there was no belts for gun holsters.

"I like the new uniform, Cap," Rhea commented.

"It's tighter than it was," He commented, and Natasha smiled.

"You'll get used to it. You're not in the Army anymore, you're a part of SHIELD for the moment. We wear tight uniforms," She joked as she flew over the Statue of Liberty, letting the three know they had reached New York City and just as the sun was setting.

Natasha maneuvered the jet onto a building near where Roxanna lived. She knew it would be abandoned because of a device in the console of the jet, so it would be safe to land there, which she did. She turned it off, and lowered the ramp before unbuckling herself and standing up. She followed Rhea and Steve off of the jet and onto the roof just as the street lights below them went on, and night set in. Rhea pulled out small gadget out of her pocket before pointing to a building across the street and two buildings to the right.

"That's where she lives. Third floor, room 315," Rhea said reading off the information.

"Well, let's get closer so we can see," Natasha said moving to the fire escape on the other side of the building that dropped down into an alley. They all quickly climbed down and made their way onto the street before slipping into another alleyway across from Roxanna's apartment.

"Are we just supposed to wait?" Rhea asked, a little bit of impatience in her voice. She liked action; she liked doing something. Sitting and waiting was neither fun nor ideal to her.

"Yep," Natasha said as she leaned against the wall, and the strawberry blonde rolled her green eyes before sitting on the paved road of the alley and leaning her back against the wall.

"Fantastic," Was her reply. For the most part, they were all quiet. Occasionally, Steve would ask a question and one of the girls would answer. Until three hours had passed, making it eleven o'clock at night, and Rhea was growing impatient. "What exactly are we waiting for?" She asked, picking up a pebble from off the street and tossing it into the shadows of the alleyway.

"Something out of the ordinary," Natasha replied.

"It's New York," Rhea commented. "Everything's out of the ordinary here."

"Well, then look for something that looks too normal to belong here," Natasha said. "Someone trying too hard to fit in." Rhea merely rolled her eyes.

Like Natasha, Steve seemed to manage long periods of time doing nothing. After about another half hour, there was some movement down the end of the alley way. Rhea stood up, remaining silent. The other two followed her actions. The moved back more into the shadows, watching as a man wearing similar gear to Natasha crossed the road to the house they had under surveillance.

It was only when Rhea moved fully into the light that Steve saw what she was wearing. On the plane, and as they moved their way to Roxanna's house, she'd seemed to be wearing a suit similar to Natasha's. However, it's true specialty became clear. The suit refracted the light and area around her, making it hard to see where she was moving. What made her harder to follow still was how she moved, using the shadows to shield her, bending her body in particular ways. They watched as the man entered the house.

"We're going in," Natasha said decisively, more for Steve's benefit than Rhea's.

She nodded and slipped around the side of the house. She swung up onto the balcony, sitting on the top of it. Natasha followed in the same, athletic gymnast fashion. She was an accomplished ballerina, as every Russian should be. Steve opted for a more conventional method, using his upper body strength to pull himself up. They moved along, silently and in a pattern, listening for any sounds or movement inside the house. They paused.

"Hello?" A young, female voice came from inside the house before a light flicked on.

The spies and the captain watched as a woman's silhouette made its way through the house. In the next second, there was a bang, followed by a scream. Rhea kicked the window through, shattering the glass. In the half light, she could see the man from the alley holding the small blonde girl she'd only seen once before on a monitor. She wasn't wearing her glasses, clearly having only just woken up. Without hesitating, she spun through the air, trying to divert the attention from Roxanna to herself. Her foot hit the man in the chest and he stumbled backwards. As soon as the SHIELD agents had appeared, Roxanna had jumped back in fright.

"Who are you?" she asked frantically as Rhea moved forward to hit the man again.

She noticed something odd about his eyes. They were glowing with an unnatural blue colour, the same colour as the pictures she'd seen of the Tesseract. After another moment, she realised it was a SHIELD agent, one she'd worked with before. Hayden Douglas, who specialised in warfare, was acting against them.

She froze for a second, trying to figure out how this could have happened. It was all he needed to recover. He returned attack on her, hitting out at her, hitting her weak spots, the spots that every agent was taught. His hand went to his hip and she knew there was a gun there. Before he could draw it, Natasha's fist smashed into his face and she kneed the hand holding the gun, an audible crack at the contact as he dropped it, seething with rage. Her next punch rendered him unconscious.

Meanwhile, Captain America had pulled Roxanna into the kitchen. He took in all her features immediately, as he'd been trained to do. Anything could help in a liable situation. Her blue eyes clearly displayed fear and her messy blonde hair showed him that she had just woken back.

"Who are you? Who is that man? What are you doing here?" she asked, her questions spilling out of her mouth urgently.

"My name is Steve Rogers. I am part of an organisation called SHIELD and earlier this day, you were found breaching our system." This wasn't strictly true as they had three suspects, but the appearance of the man meant they must have tracked it back to her as well, therefore making her the most likely.

"Steve Rogers? As in Captain America?" she asked, her voice a lot calmer. Her eyes flicked down his body, taking in his suit.

"Indeed ma'am. Please, focus on the matter. Did you hack the SHIELD system at 1537 hours today?"

"No... I mean, I don't think so... I was just fiddling around with my computers like I always do. Sometimes new information comes into my computer but I generally just ignore it." She bit her lip before looking up at him. "And I guess that happened today..." She trailed off, before glancing over to where Rhea and Natasha were standing. Steve followed her gaze.

With a moment to take a deep breath, Roxanna actually studied him. She couldn't believe she was standing in front of an actual legend. The suit he was wearing hugged his body tightly, showing clear muscle definition. The Super Soldier serum had definitely worked, and it showed. Roxanna temporarily forgot the predicament she had just been in and stared at him for a few moments before the voice of Rhea brought her back. The blonde shook her head and had to ask what was said again.

"Are you okay?" Rhea repeated, this time more slowly and with a smirk because she was fully aware of where the girl's attention had been. She had had her mind there before if she was being honest. Steve Rogers was quite attractive.

Roxanna nodded. "Yeah... I'm fine." She seemed to get over her initial shock. "What the hell just happened?" She snapped.

"You need to come with us," Natasha said.

Roxanna shook her head. "I'm not going _anywhere_ with _anyone_until someone tells me what's going on," She stated.

"You're in danger," Rhea said, giving into the girl's questions.

"Excuse me?" Roxanna questioned, her eyes wide in disbelief.

"Look, we'll explain later, but you need to come with us before he wakes up," Rhea said motioning to the fallen SHIELD agent behind them.

Roxanna glanced at the man before looking back at Rhea. "Can't you just take him with you?" She said. "And leave me here?"

"Oh, we're taking him with us," Rhea said. "But if we leave you here more like him will come," She added. "So we need you to come too."

Roxanna sighed and look ready to protest before finally nodding her head. "Fine. I'll go. Can I at least get dressed first?" She asked and it was then they all took in her short shorts and camisole she wore as pajamas.

Rhea nodded. "Yes. But be quick," She said before the girl dashed off to her room to change.

Steve moved over to the fallen SHIELD agent before picking him up and throwing him over one shoulder, figuring he would be too heavy for either one or both of the females to carry. The Super Soldier Serum gave him extra strength, enough to hold up a motorcycle with three girls sitting atop it, which was something everyone in the '40s knew about. He shook his head at the memory, hating that what he thought would make him a hero had at first turned him into some circus freak _before_he had become what he was now.

Roxanna reappeared wearing shorts and a checked blouse. Her glasses from the photo they'd all viewed from her ID photo were now on. They gave her a more intelligent, yet more innocent look.

"We're leaving now," Rhea told her, turning to walk to the window.

"Rhea?" Natasha called just before her friend stepped through it. "We can go out the door." Steve chuckled as he walked down the stairs, still holding Hayden. Roxanna followed him, her every step seeming nervous. They exited out onto the street, leaving Roxanna's apartment unlocked and destroyed. They'd follow it up later.

"You still haven't told me anything. I shouldn't be coming with you," she said, looking at them with wide eyes.

There were several reasons why she had accepted. Earlier, she had been online and like always, a site with a warning had come up. She'd just ignored it and continued but it seemed this time she'd done some damage. The other reason was the appearance of Captain America. She knew that he was a superhero. Everyone did, but he'd been frozen for the last seventy years. The two women also seemed to be dressed for this kind of thing... whatever it was. So Roxanna came; if she'd made a mistake or done something wrong, she'd take the punishment for it.

They lead her through the streets and to a seemingly abandoned building. Captain America placed the fallen agent on the ground to briefly lift up Rhea. She grabbed the fire escape and they all made their way up the stairs. When they reached the top, Roxanna's jaw literally dropped. There was what seemed like a fighter jet parked on the roof of the building. From this height, Roxanna could see her own apartment. The redheaded woman walked over, pulling out a small key pad concealed on the side of the jet. A horizontal screen folded out and she placed her hand onto it.

"Access allowed," a robotic voice stated before the side of the jet opened out, revealing a door. Steve turned back slightly and grinned at Roxanna's awed expression.

"In you go," he told her, walking over himself. The two other females pulled themselves up, the one with the mirrored suit had a black one now. Roxanna cautiously climbed in and instinctively reached to pull a seat belt on, as she would in a car. Steve chuckled at her.

"You ain't in Kansas anymore, Dorothy," he joked and Roxanna gave him a small smile back.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked after a moment, her voice quiet but clear.

"Somewhere where you'll be safe from guys like him," Steve told her, jerking his finger at the man lying on the ground. "And where you can be very useful." Roxanna frowned at this statement but didn't question it.

"And who are they?" she asked, pointing at Rhea and Natasha.

Steve hesitated a moment before replying. He was obviously recognizable, due to his suit and physique. Although both of the spies were known in their world, they were basically undercover to civilians. Steve didn't know if he should share their identities with the small blonde girl. However, glancing back at her, she seemed too lost that he decided she needed a little bit of structure.

"The redheaded woman is Natasha Romanoff and the blonde is Rhea King. They both work for an organization called S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Shield? Like what you carry?" Roxanna asked to clarify and Steve shook his head.

"No, it's an acronym." He didn't specify on what it stood for. She started to ask, but Rhea turned around, cutting her off.

"It doesn't matter what it stands for," She said.

Roxanna nodded her head, and placed her hands in her lap, twiddling her fingers as the plane lifted off of the ground and into the air, not like any normal plane Roxanna had ever been on. The ones she had ridden in had to have a runway to takeoff, but not this one. It just lifted up into the air and took off towards their destination. Roxanna had to admit, she was pretty impressed with it. This was all technology she had heard of, but never experienced herself, and she was pretty excited to see it.

The trip there was pretty quiet, the occasional conversation between Rhea and Natasha went on, but they mostly stayed silent. Steve stood in the back, holding onto the top bar of the jet to keep his balance when Natasha turned too sharply.

After a while, the jet landed on a surface, but when Roxanna stepped out of the jet, she was surprised. All that surrounded her were stars and the night sky. Her eyes narrowed curiously as she took a step forwards, but a hand enclosed around her arm pulling her back. She turned to see Steve standing there. He shook his head at her, letting her know walking around on the deck late at night was probably not a good idea.

"We're in the air," He explained to her as he started walking behind Rhea and Natasha. Roxanna followed him, intrigued by the fact they were in the air, not freaked out like most normal people would be.

They made their way inside the control room and Roxanna found herself stopping to stare at almost everything they passed by, intrigued by everything. Rhea and Natasha often had to stop and pull her along to keep her moving. But eventually they made it to their destination where Nick Fury was waiting for them. Roxanna's first instinct was to hide because he didn't seem like a very nice guy. He was tall, large, bald and wore an eye patch, all of these things seemed to add to his intimidation factor.

"Roxanna Sparks. Welcome to SHIELD," He said stepping forward and holding out his hand. "I'm Nick Fury." She hesitantly shook his hand, only doing so because she felt obligated not because she wanted to.

"What am I here for?" She asked.

"Well, as evidence of the attack that took place in your apartment, I'm pretty sure here is the best place for you," Nick said as he turned around to talk to another agent that had walked up to him before turning to and motioning for the agents to follow him into a smaller room where another man was busy working at different flat screens. "Bruce, any luck locating the Tesseract?"

"Not at the moment. We need to widen our horizons," Bruce said.

"Well, we're looking into every camera we can to narrow down places where he would be," Nick said, and Bruce shook his head.

"It's not going to be enough," He said.

"You could just tap into satellites," Roxanna said speaking up. Nick turned to give her a curious look, surprised she had spoken.

"Yes, but that could take days to get the proper authorization to do so," Bruce said.

Roxanna scoffed. "You're telling me with all this fancy equipment lying around, you can't hack into a satellite and look at the images it took?" She questioned, her eyebrows raised. "I can do that from a simple DELL laptop with 2 gigs. You've got more than that around here."

"There's protocol you have to go through in order to look at a country's satellite," Bruce said, but Roxanna wasn't listening. She stepped past the man wearing the purple shirt and started typing away at the screen.

"If this guy is as dangerous as you say he is," She said not looking up, her fingers flying across the keys. "Then you have to find him quickly, am I correct?" She asked glancing up. When no one said anything she started typing away again. "Besides, you can't be traced if you know how to cover your trail. So, no one has to know you looked through the satellite images."

"Excuse me," Bruce said, his tone clearly showing he was irritated at having this conversation with someone much younger than himself. His voice sounded like he was reprimanding a small child, and Roxanna didn't seem very pleased with the fact he considered her a child instead of someone who could help. "You can't just tap into another country's satellites without their government's say so."

He stepped forward and placed a hand on the girl's arm, pulling her away from the computer screens she had been working on. Roxanna shoved his hand off her arm, her eyes narrowed angrily. She hated being treated like she didn't know what she was doing. Steve moved forward the instant she pushed Bruce's hand off and put himself between the blonde girl and Bruce for reasons unknown to Roxanna. Bruce didn't look like much of a threat, so why did everyone seem like they were in danger? Why was Steve suddenly being protective?

She looked around the room. Everyone seemed to be tense. She frowned, not knowing what to do. Before she could say anything, Bruce rolled his eyes.

"I'm fine, okay? I just don't like people touching my stuff," he mumbled as he turned another screen towards him. Roxanna's mouth fell open slightly. She didn't know who this man was but everyone seemed to be afraid, or respectful of him. She looked up at Steve for answers.

"Roxanna, meet Doctor Bruce Banner," he said, gesturing at the man behind the computer. The name was familiar to her, but she couldn't place why.

"What do you all do?" Roxanna asked, deciding to avoid the question until later. The woman from earlier, Rhea, smirked at her.

"Well, Tasha and I attempt to save the world when the Americans can't," she said. "But I guess you could say Doctor Banner here is our local gamma ray expert."

Roxanna frowned. She knew that this thing they were searching for, the Tesseract, could be located by gamma waves. Steve had mentioned it to her on the flight back. But the British woman's words seemed to be very specific to Bruce.

"Agent King." Nick Fury's authoritative voice cut across. "Why don't you brief Miss Sparks on who the rest of her team will be during her stay here."


	2. Assembling the Team

"Excuse me? Working with?" Roxanna said, glancing between Nick and Rhea. "I'm not staying here," She said. "I have a life back home that I need to get back to," She added.

Nick Fury ignored her and continued to walk out of the room and down a corridor, back the way they had come to the main control room. Before anyone could stop her, Roxanna bolted out of the room and followed him. Rhea quickly went after the girl as did Natasha and Steve. Having a civilian walking around the most advanced government organization was not a very good idea. She could get herself into trouble or get into something that wasn't meant for her.

"Hey!" Rhea called after Roxanna as the blonde girl followed Nick Fury into the main control room.

"I'm not staying here!" Roxanna told Nick. "I have friends and family!"

"And right now, you were just attacked in your home," Nick said turning around to face her. "A little 'thank you' would be appreciated."

"Look, thank you for saving me or whatever you did, but I have to get back home," Roxanna told him, but he shook his head. He started to say something, when another agent walked up to him from him.

"Sir... we can't find Loki," He said. Roxanna rolled her eyes as Nick followed the young man over to the computer he had been working on. She walked over to the computer as well just as Rhea, Natasha and Steve walked in.

"Because you're looking through all the wrong databases," She said moving them out of the way. She wanted to get back home, as fascinating as all of this was, and if they needed to find this guy in order to do so, she was going to help.

"What are you-" The young male started to ask, but Roxanna held up her hand, telling him to be quiet before going back to typing on the computer.

"You have to look through the satellite images and correspond that with the picture you have of him," Roxanna explained as her fingers flew across the keyboard she was typing on.

She stepped back away from the computer after a moment allowing the agent back at it as she moved back towards the upper floor where the other stood. Rhea and Natasha exchanged a glance when nothing seemed to happen. Rhea started to say something when Phil Coulson walked over and stood beside Captain America. Natasha and Rhea both grinned, waiting to hear what the agent would say to his hero.

"So... I have some cards I'd like you to sign," Phil began his arms crossed over his chest and trying to appear not as nervous or as embarrassed as he felt at the given moment in time.

"Uh... sure," Steve said, glancing down at the shorter man and nodding his head. "Why not?" Steve wasn't going to say no, he was too nice of a person to do so. Even though this was very uncomfortable and awkward for him, he wasn't going to say no.

"Only if you have time, you know..." Phil said, trying to make it seem like a more rational request as Rhea and Natasha tried to stop their laughter.

"No, no it's... fine," Steve said as he crossed his arms over his chest and glanced over at the two women. Phil nodded his head and paused.

"They're vintage," He added, causing the two women to burst into laughter. Phil glanced over at them before quickly walking away from the three. Rhea and Natasha took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry," Rhea said. "We tried not to laugh... but your face..."

She couldn't help but laugh more at the uncomfortable expression on Captain America's face. Steve went to reply, but something started beeping within the carrier they resided in, and they all glanced over to see the computer Roxanna had previously been working at showed a picture of Loki up on the screen side-by-side to another one with a man who looked exactly like him. The agent clicked on something as Nick Fury walked over to him.

"You think the kid found him?" Natasha asked looking to Rhea who shrugged.

"We've got him," The younger male said looking up at Nick over his shoulder. "Stuttgart, Germany. It's about a 67 percent chance it's him..." He paused then look back at his computer. "88 percent... Looks like it's 100..."

Nick nodded his head before turning to look at Roxanna. "Well done," He said. The blonde simply nodded her head once in acknowledgement of his compliment.

"If Loki sent out a signal to someone in his group, do you think you could track that as well?" Rhea asked looking to the blonde girl.

"I could, I suppose. I'd have to be near the signal though for the most accurate results. I mean, you could always intercept the signal and bring it here, but the results wouldn't be as accurate and they'd be slower," Roxanna explained to her.

Rhea looked to Nick. "If Loki sends out a help or distress signal when we get there... we could track its whereabouts," She told Nick.

"She's not going with you," Nick told Rhea shaking his head. "She's a civilian and a kid. It's not happening."

"Look. No offense, but someone broke into my apartment and tried to take me... I'd like to be able to help and find this guy so I can get back home," She said. "If that means going with them, then I'll go."

"Not without my orders," Nick said.

"With all due respect, sir," Steve said stepping forward. "I think you should let her go. If you need the most accurate reading to locate the Tesseract, and she can do that by being there, then I think it's a good idea."

"She won't even have to leave the plane," Rhea added. "She can hang back with Tash and I."

"You want to go into a possibly dangerous situation to help us out?" Nick asked her, and she nodded her head. Nick looked from Natasha to Rhea to Captain America before sighing. "Fine. If she gets herself killed, it's on her."

Rhea nodded before motioning for Roxanna to follow her. "Tasha, prep the jet. Roxanna and I will meet you on deck," She said. Natasha nodded her head before moving in the opposite direction as Rhea with Steve behind her.

"Where are we going?" Roxanna asked.

"We're going to get you a suit," Rhea replied as they walked. "There are some left-over training suits that the cadets wear when in the Academy," She explained.

Roxanna nodded her head as they walked in silence. She glanced up at the taller woman, studying her.

She couldn't have been much older than herself, a year or two at the most. Her hair was a beautiful blonde, tinted an orange color. Right now it was in a braid, showing the highlights and lowlights on her hair color, all blended together. She was much taller than Roxanna's five-foot-one frame, probably somewhere around five-foot-eight. Her eyes, Roxanna found, were the most intriguing thing about her. They started out as a dark brown but gradually became a striking green near her pupil.

Roxanna found herself wondering why she had chosen to become a spy when she could have just as easily become a model or something more worth her time. She thought about asking, but then they reached a door at the end of the corridor and it slid open, revealing a room that very much resembled a locker room that Roxanna had seen in high school when they had to change for Physical Education class, a class that Roxanna had excelled in despite her love for computers because at one point in her life she had been a very talented gymnast.

Rhea walked over to a closet and opened the door before rummaging through a few suits before pulling one out that looked like it would fit Roxanna. She handed it to the shorter blonde before stepping out of the room, allowing her to change.

The blonde slipped into it and pulled the front zipper up all the way. The neckline of the suit wrapped around her neck in a very high collar. Roxanna thought better about it before pulling the zipper down a little way to give her some breathing room, but not enough to show her cleavage.

The suit was a simple dark gray, very close to black, material that hugged her body tightly. The material was very similar to Natasha's own, except where Natasha's had red seams, the suit Roxanna wore was black. On Natasha's uniform, there was a thick black belt that wrapped around her waist and rested on her hips with a red hourglass on the buckle her symbol as the Black Widow. On Roxanna's suit that she wore, the yellow eagle was there instead-which was the symbol for SHIELD.

A pair of boots had been left by the door by Rhea for Roxanna. She slid them on to realize they fell a little short of the top of her knees. The material of the boots was similar to what the suit was made out of, but was a darker color. When Roxanna stood up, she felt a little taller because the boots had a slight elevated platform in them, almost like combat boots.

She walked over to the door and it slid open to reveal Rhea leaning her side against the wall across from the room Roxanna was in.

"Ready to go?" Rhea asked as she pushed herself off of the wall. Roxanna nodded her head, and Rhea led the way back down the hallway up to the flight deck where a slightly larger jet-than the one Roxanna had ridden in on the way here-was waiting for them.

Inside were Natasha and the Captain.

"We have a deadline to make, tugodum," Natasha called as they slowly made their way over to the ship. Rhea smirked, Russian being one of the many languages.

"Speak for yourself. You flew like a granny on the way over here," she teased and Natasha merely raised her eyebrows.

"We have a job to do." The jet lifted off the deck and took off into the air. It flew much higher and faster than any commercial airline Roxanna had ever been on.

In the front, Rhea glanced back. She knew it was liability having the kid with them. She didn't know why she'd backed her up when Steve first said something. She also knew Natasha probably didn't approve. The Russian was a good agent, but she was very straight laced for a spy, doing whatever was required of her. Rhea didn't know why she was here, but she'd heard whispers of red on her ledger. She knew that feeling, but she tried to ignore it. Still, Roxanna had managed to calibrate the computers to find Loki faster than Bruce had. Rhea realised she'd failed to tell her who he was.

She pulled out a communicator and quickly tapped in a message. Fury had given them all communicators when they'd first boarded the ship but the agents rarely used them. Rhea pressed send and grinned as she watched Steve pull his out of his pocket. Being from the 40's, there were constantly ways to wind him up. And while Steve had a basic understanding of technology, some of the more advanced equipment was more difficult for him to work.

The message read 'brief R on what we do. Fury gave the go ahead.' The R stood for Roxanna-if she was going to be a part of SHIELD she had to know who it involved working with. Steve didn't reply but Rhea knew he'd received it. She watched as he turned to the blonde sitting beside him.

"Roxanna," he began, his voice slightly raised above the engine. "You might have realised that who we are is not normal." Roxanna cocked her head slightly to the side.

"Do you mean like your abilities?" she asked, nodding towards the suit that covered him.

"Yes, but I'm not just talking about me. There's the matter of Bruce Banner too."

"What about him?" Roxanna asked as she glanced up at him, giving him her full attention.

"He..." Steve trailed off.

"How much do you know about the serum that was used on Cap here?" Rhea asked as she glanced back at the blonde. Steve seemed to be struggling with figuring out a way to ask the girl if she knew about him or not.

"I know that it was an experiment," Roxanna said. "One man was picked from a group of several to be used. The serum was intended to enhance the person... make him as close to perfection as possible. If it worked, that is. But it could've killed him had it gone wrong," She said then shrugged. "Obviously it went well because you're sitting beside me alive."

Rhea nodded her head at Steve, having given him a way on how to explain things now since he had seemed lost before. "Well, Dr. Banner was working on replicating the serum used on me," He told her, and the girl nodded.

"Did he succeed?" She asked. Steve hesitated.

"Not... exactly," He said. "It didn't go the way he expected. He was using gamma rays to recreate it. Instead of turning him into... a perfect person it turned him into... the Hulk," He explained.

"Wait... The Hulk?" Roxanna asked as her mind started to piece things together. "Wasn't there news reports on some green creature in New York a few years ago?" She asked. When Steve nodded, her eyes went wide at realizing how close she had been to the man earlier today.

"Yes, but he assures us he has it under control," Rhea said, wanting to defend him. They were all uneasy around him, but he didn't deserve some of the treatment he got sometimes.

"But have you seen what he can do? This guy... he ripped New York apart!" Roxanna said, her voice slightly rising.

"He's just a doctor," Rhea retorted, a little sharply.

"Anyway," Steve said, cutting across the discussion. He could sense that it was about to get a little heated. "There are others in our 'team,'" he said. "Clint Barton is another agent of S.H.I.E.L.D, however he's been compromised by Loki." He noticed that Natasha stiffened slightly in the front seat when he mentioned Clint's name. "And his codename is Hawkeye." Roxanna's eyes widened slightly.

"You mean you _actually_ have codenames?" she asked, sounding incredulous. Steve nodded.

"Mine and Dr. Banner's are a bit obvious. But often S.H.I.E.L.D agent's names relate to specific talents they are exceptional at. We rarely call each other that, but sometimes, it's what the public know us as." He shifted a little in his seat, obviously uncomfortable, remembering back to his own days as a superhero. "Natasha's the Black Widow. Rhea's Chameleon."

"And what are your talents?" Roxanna asked before she could stop herself.

"You can find that out some other time," Rhea replied, smirking. Steve rolled his eyes.

"We'll be approaching Germany in forty-minutes," Natasha told them, speaking for the first time.

Roxanna nodded without knowing why. They'd only left what seemed like an hour ago. Normally it would take at least twelve hours to fly to Europe. She continued to watch out the window as they flew over Berlin. The lights of the city sparkled, but as they descended, some seemed brighter than others.

"What's that blue light?" she asked, pointing. Rhew glanced out the window. There seemed to be a crowd of well dressed people, all standing in front of a horned figure. He was holding a scepter exactly the same colour as the Tesseract.

"That's him," Rhea confirmed, and Natasha quickly maneuvered the shuttle down. Loki lifted his spear at one man who was standing taller than the rest.

"I'm out," he said before hitting a button. The back of the craft opened and he fell to the ground, landing steadily on his feet, his shield held in front of him. He deflected the beam that Loki just shot, saving the man who was standing's life. He realised that everyone seemed to be kneeling as he walked closer to Loki.

"You know, last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above the rest, we ended up disagreeing on a lot."

Loki smirked at him. "Ah yes. The Soldier out of time."

"Oh, I'm not the one out of time," he replied. On cue, the jet he'd just jumped out of swung down to point at Loki. Natasha was still at the controls and Rhea had a manual gun pointing out the open exit the Captain had left. As they did so, Loki leapt forward and attacked the Captain. Roxanna gasped when they first hit. Loki's beams flew off the Captain's shield as they tried to lock onto Loki manually.

"I can't get a lock. They're moving too much, I'll hit the Captain," Rhea said. Roxanna noticed how she was using his codename. Natasha shook her head as she watched Loki push the Captain to the ground, holding him there with the spear against his neck, in a lock.

"Kneel," he commanded. The women in the jet could clearly hear him.

"Oh, God," Rhea said, rolling her eyes. On the ground, the Captain looked up.

"Not today," he replied before jumping up and spinning, delivering a kick to Loki. Before he could attack him anymore, a missile appeared and slammed into Loki, knocking him back into the stairs. Roxanna jumped as rock music began pumping out of their aircraft.

"Oh, God," Rhea repeated right before a voice cut across the music.

"Agents King and Romanoff. I'll take it from here." The voice was smug and Roxanna watched as a metal figure of red and gold floated into view. He lowered to the ground.

"Iron Man?" she asked, having also seen him on the news as Tony Stark. Rhea nodded, pulling the gun from the aim.

"Make a move, Reindeer Games," Iron Man jeered at Loki. He looked at him for a moment before he powered down his spear. "Good move." Iron Man grabbed him, flying past the Captain.

"Captain," Iron Man said, his voice so smug that he made the title sound like an insult.

"Mr. Stark," the Captain replied, nodding. He grabbed a low bar off the jet and hauled himself up as Iron Man flew Loki up and dumped him in the back. The jet quickly took off and Roxanna turned in awe as Captain America and Iron Man began to talk.

"I don't like this," the Captain was saying.

"Of course you don't," Rhea muttered at the same time as Iron Man said, "What, you're not buying his play?"

"No. He packs a punch, so why'd he give up so quickly?" Natasha kept the jet steady as they continued to fly but they all jumped as thunder and lightning hit the air around them. The Captain noticed Loki's reaction was particularly strong.

"What? You're not afraid of a little lightning, are you?" he asked.

"I'm not overly fond of what follows," Loki said in a somewhat bored sounding voice.

There was a thump, of something hitting the jet. Iron Man pressed the same button the Captain had earlier, allowing the back of the ship to be opened. Before he could move, a tall man with long blonde hair, wearing a cape and carrying a hammer hit him to the front. He landed beside Roxanna. The man grabbed Loki and Rhea moved out of her seat, pulling her weapon. She knew who he was: Thor, the Norse god of thunder and Loki's half brother. If he managed to take him, there was no getting him back. Unfortunately, that was what happened. He grabbed Loki and jumped out of the plane, quickly disappearing into the night sky. Iron Man quickly stood and powered up, to follow them. Before he jumped, the Captain called.

"Stark! We need a plan of attack!" Iron Man turned back for the briefest moment before replying.

"I have a plan: Attack," he responded before jumping off. The Captain followed his footsteps, grabbing a parachute.

"I'd sit this one out, Cap," Rhea said warningly.

"I can't do that, ma'am."

"These guys are practically gods," Rhea added. Captain America might have the Super Soldier Serum but he was still human. However, his response was so typical of him, she had to roll her eyes.

"No offense, ma'am. But there's only one God. And I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that." With those parting words, he pulled the parachute on and jumped.

"Is he crazy?" Roxanna asked, staring at the spot where Steve had stood just moments before.

"No. He's doing his job," Natasha said with a sigh as she pressed some buttons on the control panel above her head.

"Yeah. And making it very difficult for us to do ours," Rhea retorted as she hit the same button to close the ramp up before she sat in the seat beside Natasha. "Hey, Roxanna. You can locate a computer, right?"

Roxanna nodded as she stood up and moved closer to the two women. "Yeah?"

"Any computer? You can locate it?" Rhea questioned her. Roxanna nodded her head again.

"Yeah."

"Stark's suit is basically a computer. Think you can locate where it went?" Rhea asked the younger woman. Roxanna nodded her head.

"I can try," She said as Rhea pressed a button and a small computer slowly lowered from off of the wall of the ship.

Roxanna sat down in front of it and placed the headphones on over her ears before typing away at the keyboard. Stark had to use voice-activated controls with his suit, which were at the core computer controls. If she could pick up the energy signal his suit used, she could track its GPS location. But finding the signal was the tricky part. Stark was a smart man, and he wouldn't want the government to easily be able to find him. Plus, his suit wasn't a normal computer and went through Stark tower systems first before she could even begin to think of finding the suit's location. And Stark Tower was heavily protected.

"Anything?" Rhea asked looking back at her. Roxanna removed the headphones as she turned to face Rhea.

"Well, if I wasn't sent a fake location to throw me off, these are the GPS coordinates," She said.

Rhea explained on how to send the coordinates to another device in SHIELD before the numbers popped up overhead. Natasha swerved the jet, heading toward the location they were given. Within a few minutes, they saw a bright blue flash down below before the trees in the small clearing were blown over, giving a the girls a good view of the three men below. Rhea glanced around and noticed Loki was stuck a top a mountain, unable to go anywhere because he couldn't fly like his adopted brother.

Natasha lowered the jet as close to the ground as she could, allowing the aircraft to hover in place while Thor grabbed Loki from off the cliff he had left him. Roxanna pressed the button after instructed by Rhea to do so, and Iron Man flew in. The second his feet touched the metal of the jet, his mask disappeared, revealing his face. The Captain grabbed the edge of the ramp and lifted himself aboard before Thor flew in and set Loki down as well. The blonde hacker pressed the button and the ramp closed into the jet before Natasha took off again.

Steve pulled his mask off, letting it hang down his back since it was attached to his suit. He glanced at Roxanna and noticed she seemed uncomfortable with all these different superheroes around her, especially with Loki there.

"Are you okay?" he asked in a low voice.

"Are you okay?" he asked in a low voice. She nodded, looking at him with big, wide eyes.

"It's just kind of hard to tell who the good guy...is," she said, trailing off self-consciously. It seemed like a silly thing to say to a legend, but with Iron Man swooping in, and then Thor who was supposed to be an ally taking Loki, everything just got confusing. But Steve nodded as if he knew exactly where she was coming from.

"The suit fits you well," he said instead of answering at her question. He meant it as a compliment. It made her look older, more likely to be respected. However, Roxanna frowned before glancing down at herself and Steve realised how his comment could have been taken. The suit fit her very tightly, and somewhere during the events that had passed over the last ten minutes, the zip had come down slightly, revealing some of her cleavage. She blushed and pulled the zip up, crossing her arms defensively over her chest.

"I mean, the logo suits you," Steve added, trying to backtrack, a slight flush also appearing on his cheeks. She giggled at his embarrassment.

"We'll be landing on the base ship in three hours." The jet wasn't equipped to deal with seven people, one in a heavy suit and another powerfully built god. Rhea glanced over at Thor.

Since his arrival, he'd stood beside Loki, his hammer resting beside him. She expected he'd talk to Fury and Agent Coulson when they arrived back on the mother ship. From what she'd heard, when he'd been exiled from his home country, Asgard, he'd befriended Agent Coulson and been a great help to S.H.I.E.L.D. There was a high chance he'd help Earth again to retrieve the Tesseract, especially if his own brother was the one who had unleashed its power. She studied him as she'd been trained to do, taking in his longish blonde hair and his muscled physique. He wasn't squeaky clean and taunt like Steve but he was certainly attractive in an almost wild way. After all, he was the god of thunder.

The three hours passed without event and the seven superheroes, villains and agents all got off the shuttle, moving directly into the main ship. Before Rhea could blink, Loki was lead away. Everyone knew where he was going. There had been a special glass chamber built by S.H.I.E.L.D. to contain the most dangerous monster known to them—the Hulk. The walls were solid glass 50 centimetres thick. Any contact with them resulted in the glass tank dropping out of the bottom of the plane.

The superheroes and agents were all gathered around a small, circular table in one of the many rooms of the aircraft carrier. Hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the table was a screen where the group could see Loki and Nick Fury, and also hear the conversation that happened between them. Nick walked over to a touch screen and tapped in a few keys before turning to Loki, a smirk evident on Fury's face.

"In case this is unclear," He stated. "You try to escape, you so much as scratch that glass, thirty thousand feet straight down in a steel trap." He smirked before pointing at Loki. "Ant." then he pointed at the screen. "Boot."

Loki returned Fury's smirk. "It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me."

Fury nodded his head. "Built for something a lot stronger," He replied.

Loki continued to smirk. "Oh, I've heard." He glanced at the camera, and from the room where the agents and heroes sat, it seemed like he was staring directly at Bruce. "A mindless beast makes believe he's still a man." His gaze returned to Fury. "How desperate are you that you call on such lost creatures to defend you."

Bruce rolled his neck as he felt everyone's gaze shift onto him, making the man uncomfortable. Even Fury turned to face the glass on instinct before he turned back to Loki.

"How desperate am I?" he repeated slowly. "You threaten my world and steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace, and you kill because it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did." He was deadly serious as he spoke to the god. Loki seemed to sense this and he smirked again.

"It burns you to have come this close," he said, speaking slowly and clearly. "To have the Tesseract, to have power- unlimited power- and for what?" He paused, meeting everyone in the room's eyes. "A warm light for all mankind to share?" he asked in a mocking voice. "And then to be reminded what real power is." Nick Fury's face was impassive.

"Well let me know if 'real power' wants a magazine or something." Fury turned and strode out of the glass room, and into the conference room where everyone else was located.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he," Bruce commented as he studied Loki. Steve came to stand beside him, facing everyone else in the room.

"Loki's gonna drag this, so Thor; what's his play?" he asked. The tall blonde met Captain America's eyes unflinchingly.

"He has an army called the Chitauri, that none of Asgard nor any world know. He means to lead them against your people." Roxanna couldn't stop herself from giggling quietly. Thor had such a backwards, old fashioned way of speaking and that paired with the British sounding accent made he seem like he belonged in a university lecture, not the god of thunder. "They will win him the earth, in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract," he finished.

"An army? From out of space?" Steve's tone was disbelieving and Roxanna found herself agreeing with this sentiment. However, a couple of days she wouldn't have even dreamed of imagining that there could be people with superpowers inhabiting earth or agents like Rhea.

"So he's building another portal?" Bruce mused aloud, understanding the physics behind Thor's statement. "That's what he needs Selvig for."

"Selvig?" Thor asked, his voice becoming sharper.

"He's an astro-physicist," explained Bruce but Thor shook his head.

"He's a friend."

"Loki has him under some kind of spell," Natasha said from just beside the doorway. "Along with one of ours."

"What I want to know is why Loki let us take him," Rhea commented. "Because despite what he said, he's not leading an army from here."

"I don't think we need to worry about Loki. That guy's brain is like a bag full of cats. I can smell the crazy on him," Bruce said disparagingly. Thor glared at him.

"Take care of how you speak. Loki is beyond reason but he is of Asgard. And he is my brother." Everyone in the room turned to look at Thor disbelievingly.

"He killed eighty people in _two_ days," Natasha told him.

"He's adopted," Thor added flippantly and Rhea found herself laughing.

"Idrium, what did they need the Idrium for?" Bruce was muttering, still studying Loki. The answer came in the form of a tall man striding into the room. He was wearing a suit and sunglasses and he had a neatly trimmed black beard. Roxanna thought she recognized him from TV last year. The same as she had with Dr. Banner.

"Stabilizes," he said, answering Bruce's question. "Means, the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D." He paused, smirking. "No hard feelings, Point Break, you've got a mean swing," he said as he tapped Thor on his arm. "Also means the portal can open as wide, stay open as long as Loki needs. Uh..." He noticed Roxanna and frowned slightly but didn't say anything. "Raise the miss mass! Ship top sail!" Rhea raised her eyebrows, wondering what Tony Stark was going on about.

"That man is playing Galaga!" he called. "Though we wouldn't notice but we did," he said as he pointed to a young man in the corner of the room, walking to the screens Fury operated from. "How does Fury even see these?" he asked no one in particular.

"He turns," Agent Maria Hill replied dryly.

"Sounds exhausting," Tony said, rolling his eyes. "The rest are raw materials Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily." It took Roxanna a moment to realise the man had returned to talking about the Portal. He spoke so quickly and stabilizing alien portals wasn't really her forte. "Only major component he still needs is a power source, something of a high energy density, something to kick start the cube." As he spoke, he reached under Fury's computers and placed something there but Roxanna couldn't see what. She assumed it was some sort of electronic bug and made up her mind to look at it later.

"When did you become an expert on thermo, nuclear, astrophysics?" Maria Hill asked Tony, her arms crossed over her chest and an unamused expression clear on her face.

Tony turned to face the group, a look of disbelief on his face that she would even ask that question. "Last night. The packet. Selvig's notes. The Extraction Theory papers... am I the only one who did the reading?" He asked and when no one responded he nodded his head, clearly having his answer.

"Does Loki need any kind of particular power?" Steve asked, jumping straight into strategy and tactic, just like a soldier, just like he had been taught to do.

Rhea noticed Tony sigh exasperatedly. It was no secret that Tony and Steve clashed on a regular basis. Steve did everything by the book, just like a soldier. And Tony did everything that broke the rules in whatever flashy style he could think of, anything that got the job done and looked cool. Steve didn't understand why Tony couldn't just follow the rules and perform his job in a simple fashion, and Tony didn't understand how Steve could just follow orders without asking questions or knowing what they were being given.

"He'd have to heat the cube to a 120 million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier," Bruce stating speaking up. Tony's eyes lit up that someone was commnicating with him on his level.

"Unless, Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunnelling effect," Tony stated as he moved towards Bruce who nodded his head in agreement.

"Well, if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet," Roxanna stated, speaking up for the first time in a few moments, having felt out of her element when Tony had walked in and started talking.

Tony glanced at her, his eyebrows raised. Clearly he hadn't expected anyone else in the room to understand what he and Bruce were talking about, especially the little blonde girl. Everyone else looked lost, but she had this confident look about her that she knew what she was talking about. He gave the girl an approving nod.

"Finally, someone who speaks English," He stated smirking at her. "And who are you?" He asked her before glancing around the room. "Who's the fresh meat?"

"Roxanna Sparks," Rhea informed waving her hand towards the blonde girl. "She's residing here at SHIELD until we deem it safe for her to return home."

"Wait, English?" Steve asked, glancing at Tony then Roxanna. "Is that what just happened here?"

Tony ignored Steve's confusion and crossed the room to Bruce before shaking his hand. "It's good to meet you, Dr. Banner. Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled," He said then smirked. "And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

Bruce cocked his head before giving a tight smile, not sure how to take that. So he replied in the most neutral way he could think. "Thanks."

"Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube," Nick Fury stated as he walked into the room, making it clear he had no intention of letting the Hulk out. "I was hoping you might join him."

"You could start with that stick of his. It may be magical but it works an awful lot like a Hydra weapon," Steve stated, feeling helpful for once at being able to offer a suggestion based on his knowledge from his own year, but Nick shook his head.

"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube," He stated looking at Tony and Bruce. "And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

Thor turned to glance at Nick, confusion clear in his eyes. "Monkeys? I do not understand-" Before he could finish, Steve had lightly his his fist on the table in excitement.

"I do!" He exclaimed. Everyone turned to glance at him, lost as to what 'he did'. Steve glanced around at the group before sheepishly adding, "I understood that reference."

Roxanna giggled, having found the exchange humorous while Tony rolled his eyes, as he very often did when Steve did or said anything before turning to Bruce.

"Shall we play, Doctor?" He asked, and Bruce nodded his head.

"This way," He stated as before leading the way, and the two began to walk off down the hall before Fury called out to the two men.

"I was hoping Miss Sparks could join you. She might be useful," He stated.

Tony turned to glance at Nick before his gaze flickered onto the blonde woman beside Steve. He was tempted to think girl because of how small and petite she was, but her age couldn't have been that much younger from Rhea's, maybe an year, making her certainly not a girl at the age of twenty four. He nodded his head and motioned for the blonde to follow him, which she did eagerly, happy to be of assistance in an environment she knew about. The three walked off down the hall, leaving the rest of the heroes and agents in the room.

Bruce immediately walked up to the Tesseract and began to scan it. "The Gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports on the Tesseract. But it's going to take," he paused tp run some calculations in his head. "Weeks to process."

"If we bypass their mainframe and direct a re-route to the homer cluster, I think we can clock this around six hundred teraflops," Roxanna returned, glancing at the same readings. Bruce stared at her for a moment before chuckling, impressed.

"All I packed was a toothbrush," he told her.

"You know," Tony said, walking around the desk that contained all the instruments. "You should come by Stark Towers sometime," he said to both of them. "Top ten floors, all R and D. You'd love it." He winked at Roxanna. "It's candyland." Bruce shifted uncomfortably, tapping on the keyboard.

"Thanks but last time I was in New York, I kinda... broke... Harlem." Roxanna cocked her head in surprise. She tended to forget Bruce was anything more than just a normal human until he said something like that. She had to keep reminding herself that they were all here for a reason. They were all special in some way or another.

"Well, I promise a stress-free enviroment," TOny said, smirking. "No surprises," he added as he tapped Bruce in the back with a shock stick.

"Ow," Bruce said, deadpan, not looking up. It was at this moment that Steve stepped into the room.

"Hey!" he called out when he realised what Tony was doing.

"Nothing at all?" Tony asked Bruce, sounding disappointed.

"Are you nuts?" Steve snapped as he crossed the room. Roxanna felt a little surprised. Steve had come across as civil all the times she'd spoken to him. But for the second time in as many minutes, she was reminded that Bruce _did_ have the ability to kill them all.

"You really have got a lid on it, haven't you?" Tony mused, ignoring Steve. "What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?"

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve asked, glaring at the other superhero.

"Funny things are," Tony quipped as Rhea walked through the door. He smirked at her as she rolled her eyes, hearing his final comment.

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense," he added to Bruce.

"None taken."

"Captain, I don't think Dr. Banner would have come aboard if he couldn't handle pointy things," Roxanna said, surprised to find herself speaking. Everyone turned to look at her and she fought to keep her blush down.

"You're only tiptoeing, big man," Tony said. "You need to strut."

"And you need to focus on the problem, Stark," Rhea interjected lazily from the doorway.

"You think I'm not?" he asked, turning to face her. "Why did Fury call us in? Why now? Why not before?" Roxanna found herself asking the same questions. Surely S.H.I.E.L.D. could have traced her sooner if she was going to be that great of an asset. "What isn't he telling us, hmm?" Stark asked as he walked over to Rhea, stopping in front of her. "I can't do the equation unless I have all the varaibles."

"Fury is not hiding something," Rhea said, adamant to believe in her director.

"He's a spy, Chameleon, he's _the_ spy," Stark returned, using her codename for once. "Even his secrests have secrets." He turned and pointed at Bruce. "It's bugging him too, you know."

"Uh..." Bruce said, trailing off and glancing at Roxanna quickly. "I just wanna finish my work here."

"Doctor?" Steve asked, tilting his head slightly.

"'A warm light for all mankind to share,'" Bruce intoned. "Loki's jab at Fury about the cube?"

"I heard it," Rhea ascertained, nodding.

"I think it was meant for you," Bruce said slowly before looking up to meet eyes with the man known as Iron Man.


	3. Things aren't always as they seem

"You mean that big, ugly..." Steve trailed off at the annoyed, unamused look he was receiving from Tony at calling his home 'ugly'.

"It's powered by Stark Reactors, self sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for what, a year?" Bruce asked, glancing at Tony for confirmation who nodded.

"It's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. It's what he's getting at," Tony explain to Steve when he gave a confused look as to why Stark Tower was brought up.

"So why did S.H.I.E.L.D. bring him in on the Tesseract project? I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?" Bruce asked, trying to make his point clear. Steve looked like he was deep in thought, trying to figure it all out before Tony spoke.

"I should probably look into that once my encryption device finishes breaking into all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secure files," Tony stated as he pulled out a small PDA from his back pocket and began to press a few buttons on the touch screen he had produced.

"Was that what you placed under the the computers?" Roxanna asked him. "When we were in that one room?" Tony looked at her, his eyes narrowed curiously.

"You noticed that?" He asked, and she nodded. "Wow. I'm impressed," He stated, a smirk appearing on his face.

"I'm sorry, and you said-" Steve asked, stepping forward and cutting off the conversation between Roxanna and Tony, trying to make sure he heard Tony right.

"JARVIS has been running on it since we've been on the bridge. In a few hours I'll know every dirty secret S.H.I.E.L.D. has," Tony said glancing at Steve.

"Yet, you're confused about why they didn't want you around?" Steve asked him, his voice unamused about the whole situation.

Rhea chuckled. Steve had a point. Tony was confused about why Nick hadn't called him in right away for many things. But it was because whenever Tony was around he always thought he knew better than the rest. And always tried to have his way done instead of others. He always had a sarcastic remark to make because he knew best. And if others disagreed then they were wrong. Tony was self-centered, and rarely cared about anyone else but himself. And he always meddled where he didn't belong. And he wondered why S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't want him aboard?

"An intelligence agency that fears intelligence? Historically, not possible," Tony stated as if that answered all the questions.

"I think Loki means to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don't stay focused he'll succeed," Steve told them in a very soldier-like voice. "We have orders, we should follow them."

Tony grinned. "Following's not really my style," He stated.

"And you're all about style, aren't you?" Steve asked, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Of the people in this room, which one is: A, wearing a spangly outfit; and B, not of use?" Tony asked, delivering two blows to the Captain, but before Steve could retort, Roxanna spoke up.

"Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?" She asked him softly. His gaze flickered onto her for a split second before glaring back at Tony.

"Just find the cube," Steve stated before walking passed Rhea and out the door who was staring at Tony, shaking her head.

"What? You gonna defend your director?" Tony asked her, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

"I might just kick your ass instead," she told him. "But Steve isn't wrong about Loki. He does have the jump on us." Stark rolled his eyes as Rhea stepped further into the room.

"What he's got is an ACME dynamite kit," Tony said and Roxanna laughed, apparently finding the reference to the _Looney Tunes_humorous. "It's gonna blow up in his face and I'm gonna be there when it does."

"And I'll read all about it," Bruce interjected.

"Why won't you suit up like the rest of us?" Roxanna asked, glancing down at her suit. She had only been a S.H.I.E.L.D agent for three days but it felt like a lot longer.

"Ah see, I don't get a suit of armour," Bruce said, only a touch bitterly. "I'm exposed, like a nerve. It's a nightmare."

"You know, I've got a cluster of shrapnel, trying every second to crawl its way into my heart. This stops it. This little circle of light. It's part of me now, not just armor. It's a terrible privilege." It was the most profound thing Rhea had ever heard Tony Stark say.

"But you can control it," Bruce said mildly

"Because I learnt how."

"Anything can be learnt how to be controlled," Rhea said a little sharply.

"It's different in some cases," Roxanna said.

"Hey, I've read all about your accident. That much gammer exposure should have killed you," Stark said.

"So you're saying that the Hulk... the other guy, saved my life? That's nice. It's a nice sentiment. Save it for what?" Roxanna noticed that whenever Bruce talked about the Hulk, he detached himself from it, even though it was the part that made him special.

"I guess we'll find out one day," she said quietly, smiling at him. She didn't feel like he was a monster, or dangerous.

"You may not enjoy that," he replied, a touch darkly, meeting her eyes.

"You just might," she replied, grinning at him.

"If this little love fest is over, I suggest we conclude our studies," came Tony's voice from behind a desk. Bruce rolled his eyes and went to walk over to him just as Rhea's communicator went off. She pulled it open and everyone else glanced at her.

"They want me on the deck," she said before striding out of the room. She walked in to find Agent Phil Coulson talking. Thor and Fury were there as well.

"As soon as Loki took the doctor we moved Jane Foster. We've got an excellent observatory in Traunsee. She was asked to consult there very suddenly yesterday. Handsome fee, private plane, very remote. She'll be safe," Agent Coulson was telling Thor. He looked relieved once he heard and Rhea wondered who Jane Foster was to him. A human, it seemed. She knew Thor had been to Earth once before.

"Thank you," Thor said in that deep voice of his, bowing his head slightly. "It's no accident Loki taking Erik Selvig. I dread what he plans for him once he's done. Erik is a good man."

"He talks about you a lot," Agent Coulson said, glancing at Rhea as she walked in before he turned back to Thor. "You changed his life. You changed everything around here."

"They were better as they were," Thor said, his tone scarily echoing Bruce Banner's about his condition. "We pretend on Asgard that we're more advanced, but we... we come here battling like Bilgesnipe."

"Like what?" Rhea asked, amused as she stepped up to the pair.

"Bilgesnipe. You know; huge, scaly, big antlers. You don't have those?" Rhea studied him, realising he was serious before laughing richly.

"No, we don't have those that I know of."

"They are repulsive," Thor began. "And they trample everything in their path. When I first came to earth, Loki's rage followed me here and your people paid the price. And now again. In my youth I courted war."

"You dated war?" Rhea queried, amused. It was Thor's turn to check to see if she was being serious.

"No, that is merely an expression we use. Although, I could have 'dated' Sif and classified that as courting war I suppose..."

"War hasn't started yet," Fury said. "You think you can make Loki tell us what the Tesseract is?"

"I know not," Thor told him. "Loki's mind is far afield, it's not just power he craves, it's vengeance upon me. There's no pain that would prise his need from him."

"A lot of you guys think that, until the pain stops."

"What are you asking me to do?" Rhea realised how hard it would be to have your own brother betray you, and later want vengeance against an entire race you'd sworn to protect.

"I'm asking, what are you prepared to do?" Fury repeated, deadly serious.

"Loki is a prisoner," Thor said, as if this settled the matter, but Nick was less certain.

"Then why do I feel like he's the only person on this boat that wants to be here?" Fury questioned the demi-god.

"Probably because it's part of his plan," Rhea stated as she stepped forward towards Thor and Fury. "I mean, like Steve said, it was too easy bringing him in."

Fury nodded his head. "We need to find out why." He pressed a finger to his ear. "Romanoff. Interrogate Loki. Find out why he's on this ship." He turned back to Rhea and Thor after having spoken to Natasha. Silence hung over the three for a few moments before Nick walked away.

Rhea glanced at Thor before onto the screen that was showing footage of Loki's holding cell. She watched as Natasha walked up to the glass case, and Loki turned around smirking. Rhea sighed before pulling her gaze away from the screen and onto the blonde demi-god in front of her. He piqued her interest, and she wasn't quite sure why. He was different than most people she came across, and it wasn't just because he was from a different world. He wasn't from earth, but yet he was willing to do whatever it took to protect a world that wasn't his own.

"Why?" Rhea asked him. Thor cocked his head in confusion at her question, not understanding it so she rephrased. "Why come back and defend earth?"

"I vowed to protect it," Thor stated as if it were simple.

"But why?"

"I am the reason Loki is even here," He told her. "I want to fix what I caused." Rhea started to ask another question, but Thor had turned his attention away from her and onto the screen of Loki and Natasha. Rhea sighed. There was more to Thor than everyone knew, and she wanted to know it.

Back in the lab, Roxanna was sitting down in a chair while they waited for a hit on the search results they had put out. Right now, waiting was all they could do. The blonde hacker watched as Tony paced along the lab, a lab tool in his hands. He stopped and turned towards the blonde and pointed the stick at her.

"How'd you get mixed up in all this?" He asked, waving the stick around the room when he said 'all this'.

"I thought this was already explained?" She asked, her head cocking to the side.

"It was. But I want to hear your side of it," Tony stated. Bruce glanced up from the screen he was looking up, interested in her answer.

"I was messing around on my computer. I came to a secure website and bypassed all the security codes and stuff." Roxanna shrugged like it was nothing.

"I'm impressed," Tony stated. "You're pretty young, but able to hack into S.H.I.E. computers?"

"I do it all the time," She said then smirked. "I actually hacked into your computer mainframe," She stated, an edge of pride coming into her voice.

"Is that so?" Tony asked, a hint of disbelief in his voice. She nodded her head.

"After you and Steve left the jet, Rhea had me locate your suit. Which, I can do through computers. GPS coordinates. It took me a while, but I got it," She said, grinning.

"I'll have to update the security system then," Tony stated with a small smirk. "Can't have little girls like you poking around it."

"I'm hardly a little girl," Roxanna stated with a glare at him.

"Coulda fooled me," Tony said playfully as he twirled the tool around in his hand before glancing at his phone. "I'll be right back. Gonna go make a call," He stated before stepping out of the room to call Pepper.

"Can I ask a question?" Roxanna asked, glancing at Bruce who was standing behind the table where Loki's scepter was resting on.

"You already did," Bruce said and Roxanna rolled her eyes. "But go ahead."

"Why'd you try to recreate the Super Soldier Serum?" She asked him. She noticed he tensed at her question before answering.

"It was a challenge. And I liked challenges," He stated in the simplest voice he could manage.

"If you could go back, would you not try to recreate it?" To her surprise, he nodded his head instantly.

"I wouldn't recreate it," He said. "I like to pretend I'm in control, but the truth is when I turn into that... other guy, it's all just an angry blur." Roxanna nodded, like she understood.

"I used to do gymnastics," she began. "I wanted to make it to the Olympics but I injured my back at training. When everything I'd ever lived for was crushed, I honestly didn't know what to do," she said with a small laugh. "And that's when I got into computers and hacking..." Bruce studied the small blonde, thinking about what she had just said.

"So what you're trying to say is I need something to distract me?" he asked and she nodded.

"Yes, but it sound stupid when I say it like that," she said, slightly frustrated she couldn't help Bruce. She knew he wasn't the sort of man who needed to be helped but she didn't want him to think that everyone saw him as a time bomb. Roxanna didn't most of the time.

"That's what this is," Bruce replied, an enigmatic smile gracing his face as he gestured to the technology surrounding him. "A distraction. And in any case," he said, picking up the scepter to study it more closely. "I should be the one concerned for your well-being. You've been pulled from your own environment to one that's strange and confusing." Roxanna cocked her head slightly. Although the other Avengers had respected her, they had just pulled her from her home life, where she had a job and friends. Bruce was the first to actually acknowdlege how she might be feeling.

"So I should distract you," he finished, placing the scepter down and walking over to his bag. He pulled out a small coloured cube and tossed it to her. "Catch." Roxanna caught the square and looked down to see a Rubix Cube. She smiled slightly, glancing up at him.

"You call this a distraction? I've never been able to do one of these. I hate these things!" she said jokingly, still smiling.

"You can hack mainframes but you can't decipher a Rubix Cube?" Bruce asked, amused as Roxanna nodded. "Well, in that case, it most certainly will be a distraction." Roxanna turned the cube over in her hands.

"Thank you," she said sincerely.

* * *

"Scarlett Haired woman," Thor called and Natasha turned, an amused expression on her face.

"What did you just call me?" she asked and Thor surveyed her gravely.

"Scarlett Haired woman. For your hair, which is red. I understand scarlett is a shade of red in this Realm too?" he asked. Natasha laughed and nodded.

"It is, but you can call me Natasha. Everyone else does," she said, shrugging. "What do you want?"

"The other woman, the one you call Rhea. What is she?" Thor's language and questions often evoked stunned silences from whoever he was talking to and that was exactly how Natasha reacted.

"What do you mean 'what is she'?" Natasha asked cautiously. "She's a S.H.I.E.L.D agent, like me, like Cli- Barton." Thor shook his head, some of his blonde hair falling over his face.

"She is more than that..." Thor trailed off, trying to find the words to express what he was thinking. "She is like Banner, or the Patriotic One." Natasha frowned, cocking her head. "I can sense something about her, something otherly."

"She's just human, Thor. Just like the rest of us." Thor shook his head again, this time more adamantly.

"No. She is something more. If you do not believe me, I will confront her myself," Thor said, meeting Natasha's eyes for a long moment. She shrugged in a 'go ahead' sort of fashion, not believing that anything would come of it.

* * *

Rhea was down below the main deck when she heard footsteps. She heard footsteps and peered around the corner to see a tall figure walking towards her. She stepped away from where she was to get a better view.

"Thor?" she asked when the figure came into clearer view. The blonde demi-god inclined his head slightly.

"It is I," he declared. "You are known as Rhea, yes?"

"Yes, I'm Rhea," she replied, rolling her eyes slightly.

"And you claim you are an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D?" Thor pressed on, his face grave. Rhea cocked her hip out slightly, resting a hand on it.

"I don't 'claim,' I am a S.H.I.E.L.D agent," she said, feeling slightly nervous. "Ask anyone. Ask Fury, or Coulson, or even Natasha."

"That is not all you are. You are more than human." Rhea stiffened, looking up at him. "I can feel it. So you would do well to tell me what you are." Rhea knew she could probably trust him with her secret but she couldn't risk it.

"No," she said, before darting past him and running up the stairs that Thor had come down from. It was a moment before she could hear him following her, his calm footsteps contrasting against her hurried ones. Rhea knew that it would all come out at some point. She hadn't expected this tall, unusual man to be the one to discover it.

She arrived in Nick Fury's office and he looked up, frowning when he noticed her expression.

"Can I help you, Agent King?" he asked calmly.

"He knows," Rhea blurted out. "Thor knows." She took a deep breath. "I don't know how he knew but he confronted me about it... I don't think he meant anything malicious by it, he just wanted to know." She laughed slightly bitterly. "The guy still isn't used to being lied to, I guess."

"Well then, what do you suggest we do, Agent King?" Fury said, standing, his expression even more blank than usual.

"I don't know." S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents were taught to remain calm in any situation, and Rhea was working hard to exercise this ability right now. "I feel like he has a right to know," she admitted.

"Then tell him. Tell everyone if you wish. After all, it is not my secret, Agent King," Fury said. "I am just its keeper."

Rhea nodded slowly in reply as she walked back out of the office. On the main deck, Thor stood off to the side. Maria Hill was ordering around some of the other agents. Rhea calmly crossed the deck and stood in front of Thor.

"It all started with a man called Doctor Jack Wayne," Rhea began. "S.H.I.E.L.D. likes to keep tabs on everyone who could possibly assist us or attack us in the future. Dr Wayne was a mythological scientist. Through his studies, he had discovered several mythlogical elements. Bear in mind, Thor, most humans generally consider what you and your brother are to be a myth." Thor nodded before Rhea continued.

"The three elements he had found were remains of Zeus' lightning bolt from Ancietn Greek mythology, a sun disc belonging to Ra from Egyptian mythology and fruit from the tree Yggdrasil."

"The tree of life that connects all nine realms to Asgard?" Thor asked in surprise and Rhea nodded.

"That's the one. Wayne couldn't do anything with them until they were synthesised. It was only him and I in a secret location as I watched him attempt to change these elements. One day, he decided to combine all three at once. It killed him and destroyed his life's work," Rhea said somewhat sadly. "As I wasn't in such close proximity to the elements, I didn't die. However, they changed my genetic makeup."

Rhea felt strangely okay telling someone she barely knew a secret she had kept for so long. Thor was the Norse god of thunder and she felt he had a right to know what she really was. When she had first discovered her ability, she had been alone because there was no one in her situation, except for maybe Bruce Banner. However, it hadn't been her work. She had just been an innocent bystander She guessed all the superheroes of the world, all the agents felt this way. But Rhea wouldn't call herself a superhero. She didn't want to be an avenger. She wanted to be an agent and continue to serve under the radar. That was why she had asked Fury to keep her secret. She didn't know why he had chosen to do so, but she had remained Agent King, until now.

"So what is it that you can do? Why are you not a part of our team?" Thor asked.

"I didn't want to be," Rhea replied simply. "I am an Agent. Not a superhero. And I'll show you somewhere more private," she told him, winking, trying to fit back into her old skin. She jerked her head at a back room, much like the room where they watched Loki. Once there, Rhea took a deep breath before letting the strange power absorb her. Slowly, her body began to shimmer and glisten before Rhea was no longer entirely there. Her body was refracting the light around her, causing her to become mostly invisible, like a chameleon. Thor's mouth fell open slightly.

"What _are _you?" he asked as he had before, but his voice was full of wonderment this time. The air where ripple and Rhea's body form again. She was grinning.

"I'm a chameleon." A perplexed expression appeared on Thor's face.

"No, you are a magnificent creature," he declared. "But what is this chameleon you speak of?" Rhea laughed again, letting her body show fully.

"It's an animal who blends in with its background due to heat patterns," she explained, unable to help thinking that she should show someone from her world. "And I do the same thing, except with light," she explained, before gesturing down to her body. The suit I wear amplifies and controls it."

"Is that all you can do?" Thor asked. Rhea shook her head.

"No, but I probably shouldn't show you the other half," she said. "It's kinda dangerous."

"Danger does not phase me!" Thor declared and Rhea raised her eyebrow.

"Hold out your hammer," she told him. Thor's eyes flashed slightly as they did anytime anyone mentioned his hammer. Since he was unable to retrieve it from New Mexico some months ago, he was very protective of it, yet he did as Rhea asked. Rhea focused carefully on the metal object. She figured because it was mythical, her power wouldn't affect it. She pointed her hands at it, similarly to how Tony did before he shot beams of light out of it. And this was exactly what Rhea did, except she didn't need a suit. The beam of light was hot and bathed the whole room in pure light.

"Do the Man of Iron and the Patriotic One know of this ability?" Thor asked when she had stopped the beam of light and Rhea suppressed a smile at the names.

"No one knows."

"How have you kept it a secret for so long?" Thor asked, genuinely interested in her answer. Rhea could only smirk.

"Very carefully," Was her witty answer.

Her smirk faded into a smile though, relieved that she had told someone her secret. Lying and hiding was exhausting work, and if she was being honest with herself she had been waiting for someone to tell her secret to. And she was surprisingly okay with it being the god of thunder. She bit her lip as she thought about it. She was... content with having something in common, something she shared with him. He knew about her, and that gave the two of them a connection she didn't have with anyone else.

She was surprisingly content with that. She gave a half-smile as she thought about it. She didn't need an explanation, and quite frankly she didn't want one. She didn't really need or want to know why she was okay with it. She just was. She glanced at the blonde demi-god beside her, before shaking her head at herself. Maybe he was someone who could help her understand herself better.

* * *

"I give up!" Roxanna exclaimed in frustration as she slammed the colorful cube down onto the workstation in the lab.

Bruce glanced up from the computer screen he had been looking at and let out a low chuckled at the frustrated look on the girl's pretty features. Her lips were pressed together in a tight line and her eyes were narrowed, their coloring darker than the normal icy blue. He touched his index finger to the screen and minimized out of the current page he had been looking at before walking over to the blonde. He picked up the Rubik's Cube and tossed it into the air before catching it and holding it back out to her. She shook her head.

"No way," She stated. "I give up. I can't do it."

"It's only been five minutes. You're really gonna give up that easily?" For some reason, Bruce found himself amused by her.

"That's five minutes past when I should've given up." Her answer caused another chuckle to escape his lips.

"It's essentially all math," Bruce told her.

"Now I know why I can't solve it," Roxanna stated, not taking the cube back from him.

"You're telling me you were never good at math, but yet you can hack computers?" He asked her, and she nodded her head.

"I ignore the mathematical equations of it and just used layman's terms," Roxanna explained.

"You still shouldn't give up so easily," He said in almost a chiding tone and Roxanna gave him an amused stare.

"If it's so easy, you solve it," She stated.

Bruce laughed as she raised her eyebrows challengingly at him before nodding her head towards the cube in his hand. He gave a dramatic sigh before beginning to twist and turn the different rows and columns of the object.

As he worked, his mind was on different thoughts. He had barely even realized he had relaxed into the blonde's company. He wasn't on edge or tense like he was around most people. He was at ease around her. And that worried him. Being at ease meant he wasn't on his guard and things could happen when he wasn't-bad things, like people getting hurt, like Roxanna getting hurt. He kept most people at a distance for a reason, but she seemed to evade all his walls and guards and he wouldn't even realize it until it was too late. For her and him.

After a few moments, he handed her the cube back, each side containing it's own color. He couldn't help but smirk at her put-out expression.

"See? Not so hard," He said. She turned her blue eyes up towards him and glared.

"Rubik's Cubes are stupid," She mumbled under her breath as she set the cube aside, severely upset that she couldn't solve it. Bruce, once again, couldn't help but chuckle.

"One day," He said as he walked back over to the computer screen he had been at previously before solving the puzzle. "One day you'll figure it out, Rubix."

She giggled. "Because I can't solve it, you're going to call me it? That's hardly fair."

"Who said anything about being fair," He stated as he pressed a finger onto the touch screen and a few pages popped up. He glanced over at the scepter before writing some calculations down on the notepad he had.

Roxanna pushed herself off of the chair and followed him over to the screens, wanting to be of help because she hated sitting around and doing nothing. "Anything I can help with?" She asked him. She didn't have to speak for him to know she was there, and he hadn't had to turn either. He could feel her body heat against his, and he found it oddly distracting. He shook his head to her question before turning his head to look at her.

His brown eyes locked with her blue ones, and he found himself unable to look away. He had always been good at keeping a distance from others and from developing any kind of connection, for fear of hurting the other person, but this girl was different. _Girl. _That's what she was. She just a girl. He had to keep reminding himself that. But even as he reminded himself that once again, he knew it seemed useless. She seemed intent on wanting to know him. And if he was being honest, he enjoyed Roxanna's company, even if it had just been for a few hours.

It was nice to finally have someone to talk with. It was especially nice to have someone who didn't treat him like he was a disease. Or worse, keep _their_ distance from him because they knew what he was capable of. It was nice to have someone _want _to get to know him. To purely care about what he thought and felt. And not treat him like some _thing. _Actually treat him like a human.

The sound of the lab doors opening drew Bruce's gaze off of Roxanna's blue orbs and onto Tony as he walked back in after having made his call.

"So. What'd I miss?" Tony asked, clasping his hands together in front of him.

"Nothing much," Bruce stated, going back to jotting down some notes about the scepter. "Rox, here, tried to solve a Rubik's Cube."

"She succeeded?" Tony asked as he picked up the solved object.

"No," Roxanna stated, a child-like pout creeping into her voice as she crossed her arms over her chest. Bruce chuckled again.

"I solved it," He stated.

"Ah. That your secret?" Tony asked as he tossed the puzzle into the air several times, catching it each time. "You sat around all day and figured out how to solve it?" He set the toy back down on the table as he glanced at Bruce.

"I think that would be more frustrating than calming," Roxanna stated. "I tried to solve in for five minutes and wanted to shoot the puzzle."

"You do have a point," Tony said as he walked closer to the scepter. "So where are we on locating the Tesseract?" He asked.

Roxanna started pressing buttons on the computer screen causing Bruce to glance at her to see what she was doing. "Well..." She trailed off when she caught him looking at her. "Oh, right. You don't like people touching your stuff." She grinned at him, repeating his earlier words the first time they had encountered each other.

Bruce couldn't help but grin at her before shaking his head. He waved his hand at the computer to let her know she could continue what she was doing, and she did. Tony waited as she did whatever it was she was doing while Bruce continued to write down notes on the scepter. Tony noticed Bruce seemed... comfortable around the girl. He didn't seem as tense as he had when everyone had been in here. Maybe being in large crowds made him nervous and he was okay being around just a few people? Tony somehow had a feeling that wasn't the reason. But for now, he'd let it be.

"It's searching for the signature now," Roxanna said glancing up at Tony, cutting through his thoughts. "When it gets a hit, we'll know."

Tony nodded. "Good work, Blondie." Roxanna rolled her eyes at the nickname.

"Two nicknames in one day? I must be lucky," She stated, sarcasm in her voice.

"Two?" Tony raised an eyebrow.

"He called me Rubix because I couldn't solve the puzzle," She stated, sending Bruce another glare as the topic was brought back up.

Something beeped in Tony's pocket, and he pulled out his PDA. He pressed a few buttons before reading over the message. "Well, I got through SHIELD's systems," He stated to the two in the room.

"What'd you find?" Roxanna asked, curiosity overcoming her.

"Phase 2..." Tony said, a musing tone in his voice as he read further over everything.

"What's Phase 2?" Roxanna asked, getting impatient that she wasn't getting any answers to her questions she was asking.

"I wonder when Fury is gonna mention this to us," Tony said.

"Mention what?!" Roxanna snapped. Tony glanced up at her, an amused look in his eyes that she was so impatient.

"You are impatient. Anyone ever tell you that?" Tony asked.

"Yeah. Everyone I've ever met," Roxanna said to him. "What did you find?" Before Tony could answer, Fury swept into the room, his eyes hardened.

"What exactly is it you are doing, Mr Stark?" he asked, his voice low and deadly. Roxanna took a step back, closer to the desk where Bruce was working.

"Yeah, you see, Director... We were kinda wondering the same thing about you," Tony replied, meeting his eyes as he folded his arms across his chest.

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract," Fury told them.

"We _are _locating the Tesseract!" Roxanna couldn't help but interject indignantly. Bruce nodded behind her, tapping the computer screen.

"We are, the model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile," he added. Tony smirked at fury.

"And you'll get your cube back, no muss, no fuss," he told Fury, his smirk growing. "What is Phase 2? Blondie over there wants to know." Roxanna rolled her eyes as Fury took a step closer to Tony. The door at the far end of the room opened to reveal Steve with a grim look on his face.

"Phase 2 is S.H.I.E.L.D using the cube to make weapons," he told them as they turned towards them. Roxanna noticed Bruce shift slightly beside her, a frown appearing on his face. "Sorry, the computers were moving a little slow for me," he told Tony, who simply shrugged.

"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we're-"

"I'm sorry, Nick," Tony said, shaking his head as he used the directors first name. "What were you saying?" He turned a computer screen to show everyone a loaded image of S.H.I.E.L.D's plans for making weapons. Steve's face fell, as if he was disappointed.

"I was wrong, Director. The world hasn't changed a bit," he said, his voice low. Roxanna opened her mouth to say something but the end door swung open. Thor, Rhea and Natasha walked in. Bruce looked up.

"Did you know about this?" he snapped at the group. Roxanna saw Rhea freeze for a moment, tilting her head slightly. Thor glanced down at the taller agent. Natasha calmly stepped forward.

"You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, doctor?" she said smoothly. Bruce glared at her, clearly not impressed.

"I was in Calcutta," Bruce told her dryly. "I was pretty well removed." Roxanna couldn't help but give a small giggle at this point, despite the seriousness of the situation. Natasha raised an eyebrow at her but the atmosphere in the room seemed to have deflated something. Before anything more could be said or done, Rhea stepped forward, into the centre of the room.

* * *

"I have to tell you something," she addressed the room, before glancing at Thor who was standing just inside the doorway. he nodded at her. "I'm not just a S.H.I.E.L.D agent. I have... abilities." Her words were met with silence. Even Tony Stark had no words for once... Or he didn't for a moment at least.

"Abilities like you can put your legs behind your head? Because as far as I know, all of you agents can do that." Natasha snorted as Rhea narrowed her eyes at Tony.

"Abilities like Steve has abilities or Bruce has abilities," she told him seriously. "Abilities like this," she said before she let the light move around her. She heard Roxanna gasp as she shimmered and disappeared from their view. Bruce stood up, removing his glasses as he did so.

"What are you?" he asked and Rhea slowly let her body fade back into view at his words.

"I'm just like you."


	4. The End Justifies the Means

**Author's Notes:** **So, while this story has been following the movie from day one, we do want to manipulate it a little to include our own sub (romantic) storylines so please don't be annoyed by any events we may have changed. We won't change anything major but I hope you will all enjoy the romantic areas that are beginning to come into this. Thank you for reading and reviewing! :D**

* * *

"While this is all fascinating," Nick Fury stated, cutting across the shock and surprise in the room at what Rhea had done. "We have bigger things to worry about." He turned to look at Bruce, the meaning in his words not able to miss. "You need to remove yourself from this environment."

Once again, Bruce glared. "I was removed before you all brought me back into this. I was keeping everyone else safe back in Calcutta. No one was in danger."

"Loki's manipulating you," Natasha said stepping forward. This time, Bruce turned his glare onto her.

"And you've been doing what, exactly?" He asked her. She was the one to convince him to leave Calcutta and come aboard SHIELD. In his mind, she had manipulated him just like she was trying to tell him Loki was doing.

Her eyes narrowed. "You didn't come here because I batted my eyelashes at you," She told him. There was no way she was going to let him put the blame on her for this. He had wanted to come aboard, curiosity had gotten the better of him. And she was going to make sure it was his own fault he was here.

"And I'm not leaving because you suddenly get a little twitchy," Bruce quipped back.

"What do you think Loki's planning on doing with him?" Roxanna asked as she stepped forward, trying to understand what everyone was all on edge about.

She understood that Bruce could be an indestructible force, and that was dangerous. But, she didn't get why they were all acting like he was likely to explode at any moment. He seemed quite capable of holding his own, and he seemed able to control his anger. He had done so thus far. If he could control himself so far, why did they think something was going to change that. He didn't want to hurt anyone, whether it was on purpose or accident. He didn't want any injuries at his hands, so why did they have to act like he was a hindrance to them?

"He wants to unleash the Hulk," Natasha told Roxanna.

"He hasn't done so yet," Roxanna stated, her tone laced with attitude.

Normally, she stood back and let others argue. But no one else seemed willing to argue on Bruce's behalf. They all just accepted he was ready to explode. No one wanted to believe he was just a person who had bad circumstances happen to him. No one cared that he was just human who had a horrible experienced that changed his life. He had to live with the consequences every day.

"But he will."

"If you didn't think he was capable of controlling himself, why'd you bring him on the ship?" Roxanna questioned, her eyes narrowed at Natasha.

"I don't believe you have a right to say anything. You're not an Avenger. You were brought on as as a consultant. You haven't even gone through training to be a part of SHIELD. So, if I were you, I'd sit down and stop sticking your nose where it doesn't belong," Natasha snapped at her.

Roxanna stepped forward, ready to retort back, but she felt a hand on her shoulder. She glanced up to see Bruce stepping up beside her. He motioned to the Hydra weapon Steve had set down earlier before looking to Fury.

"I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction," He said, diffusing the tension.

He was actually very grateful that Roxanna seemed willing to defend him. He didn't know why she was doing that, why she would stick her neck out for someone she hardly knew. But he was grateful for it because he wasn't used to having people do that. Normally, they all figured he was a liability and a danger. And they wrote him off as such without giving him a chance to explain himself. He gave the younger blonde girl a smile, and she returned it. No matter how much he tried to ignore it, there was a connection there.

"Because of him," Fury said and everyone in the room followed his finger to where he was pointing at the blonde demi-god. Thor looked just as shocked as everyone else.

"Me?" he queried and Rhea stared at Fury, her mouth open.

"Last year, earth has a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that levelled a small town," Fury informed them before he began to pace. "We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, out gunned."

"We always knew we weren't alone, you just never believed me," Rhea muttered and Thor glanced at her with a grin.

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet," he said nobly and Rhea returned the grin.

"But you're not the only people out there, are you?" Fury retorted. He was a brilliant tactician. He could approach an argument from many angles and often persuade people to do things that would benefit him. "And, you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, they can't be controlled.

"Like you controlled the cube?" Steve asked skeptically.

"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is the signal to all the realms that the earth is ready for a higher form of war." A sort of stunned silence settled over the group for a moment. Was it true? Had they brought Loki on themselves? Were they messing with something they couldn't hope to control or beat?

"A higher form?" Steve asked. The only higher anything he believed in was God but once again, his question was ignored.

"You forced our hand," Fury told Thor, this time a touch of dence entering his tone. "We had to come up with something."

"A nuclear deterrent, cause that always calms everything right down." The entire room was expecting a sarcastic comment from Tony at some point and he didn't fail to deliver. Fury would have none of the narcissistic superhero, though.

"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?" Fury's voice was icy cold and Steve didn't fail to back him up. The supersoldier and the Iron Man couldn't help but rub each other the wrong way, Roxanne noticed. She was more obliged to support Steve; his morals were closer to hers and as he father had been a fan of his, she was more likely to trust him.

"I'm sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck deep-" Steve muttered and this time, he was heard. Tony cut across his words in an outraged tone.

"Wait a minute! Hold on! How is this now about me?"

"I'm sorry, isn't everything?" Steve retorted and Roxanne let out a slight giggle. She glanced across the room to see Natasha rolling her eyes in agreement. Thor glanced down at Rhea.

"I thought humans were more evolved than this," he said and Rhea let out a laugh of her own.

"We normally are but when Rogers and Stark get put in a room together, it suddenly becomes a battle of testosterone. And it stinks," she told him. Thor sniffed the air visibly and Rhea shook slightly from holding in her laughter.

"I do not smell anything, Rhea. I hope that you are not deceiving me." Before Rhea could answer him and defend herself, Fury met Thor's eyes directly.

"Excuse me, did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?" he asked snarkily. Rhea's mouth dropped open slightly in shock. She couldn't believe Fury was turning this on to Thor now.

"Are you really that naive? SHIELD monitors national threats, Fury," she spat across the room. She felt a need to defend Thor. He wouldn't understand half of the terminology they used and would probably get angry and resort to violence, inflaming the situation.

"So, do you not consider Captain America as a threat?" Bruce asked, his voice carrying low across the room.

"Is that a threat?" Tony asked no one in particular, trying to turn the attention back to himself. "I feel threatened."

"You mortals speak of control, yet you court chaos in this very room," Thor noted as Bruce shook his head.

"That's Loki's M.O., isn't it? I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're... we're a time-bomb." He seemed to be growing frustrated by the situation and in turn, everyone else in the room was becoming agitated.

"You need to step away," Fury informed Bruce before Tony added his two cents once again.

"I don't think you should tell Bruce what to do," Roxanna piped up to Fury. She knew Bruce was a dangerous liability but Fury was essentially removing his human rights, de-humanizing him. Bruce was more than the monster inside him; he was a brilliant scientist too. As she said this, Tony added in his two cents.

"Come on, why can't the big guy blow off some steam?" he asked, seemingly delighted at the chaos that was beginning to ensue around the room. Steve stepped up to the other man standing in front of him.

"You know damn well why! Back off!" He said into Tony's face, his tone authoritative and commanding.

"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me," Tony replied, not backing down an inch.

"Can you smell anything yet?" Rhea asked Thor quietly, surveying the proceedings with interest.

"Yeah, big man in a suit of armour," Steve said scornfully. "Take that off, what are you?" Tony looked him dead in the eye and replied.

"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist." Thor looked down at Rhea in confusion.

"Who is this Phil Anthropist they speak of? The man of iron declared himself as Tony Stark to me," he said to Rhea who simply stared at Thor. Most of the time, it was amusing how different their communications were between Asgard and Earth. "I am now confused, Rhea. Am I to sucuumb to more of their lies?" Rhea shook her head softly.

"You should be fine," she said, her voice shaking ever so slightly with laughter. Meanwhile, Steve had began to lecture Tony on men that were worth ten of him.

"I think I would just cut the wire," Tony said dryly in relation to one of Steve's comments. Steve shook his head, the look of disgust clear on his face.

"Always a way out. You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero." Steve stated darkly.

He hated how people like Tony were treated like heroes when they were just selfish humans. He knew guys back in the army that _were _heroes but were never given the recognition they deserved. Several names came to mind, but Bucky was the first one that he could identify quickly. His friend had died trying to help out his cause, and Steve wasn't even sure if he got the funeral he deserved. He had been frozen in ice by that time. As far as the Captain was concerned, Tony didn't deserve the title of 'hero' and Steve would never call him one.

"A hero? Like you?" Tony scoffed. "You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle." His tone was dark and harsh, but he had paid his dues. Steve might never see him as a hero, but he didn't need the approval of a man who grew up in the '40s. He had saved people before, whether Steve counted it or not. He might never be a hero the way Steve was, but he didn't care.

"Put on the suit; let's go a few rounds," Steve stated, his eyes narrowed at Tony who could only smirk at the reply.

"That doesn't seem very 'heroic' to me," Roxanna cut in, while he voice was small and quiet, the disappointment was clearly heard.

She had always held him high up on a pedestal because to her he was a hero. He was what _true _heroes were. He didn't need to defend or prove himself; everyone knew what he had done. And no one was discrediting him. His statement almost seemed like he was challenging Tony, putting down what he had done. She understood how Steve must've felt; men he had known weren't credited for good deeds while Tony seemed to take everything for granted. But that didn't give Steve the right to belittle him. It seemed to Roxanna that Steve only thought Tony could something 'heroic' behind a suit of armor. Roxanna could only shake her head at him, losing respect for one of the greatest men, or so she had thought.

Steve glanced at the little blonde. His expression softened slightly and his eyes held regret for what he had said. He opened his mouth to voice it, but Thor cut across him.

"You people are petty." The god paused. "And tiny," He added and Rhea couldn't help but laugh again at his words.

Bruce shook his head and muttered, "Yeah, this is tee." His words seemed to remind Fury of something, and the head agent turned to Natasha.

"Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr. Banner back to his-"

"Where?" Bruce asked, his voice sarcastic as he cut across Fury. "You rented my room." He wasn't being coy anymore about the Hulk.

"The cell was just-" Fury began to explain, but Bruce cut him off yet again.

"In case you needed to kill me," Bruce finished for him. "But you can't. I already tried," He said and the room grew quiet at his words. "I got low, I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out. So I moved on, I focused on helping other people. I was good until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk." His eyes scanned the room, meeting each person's and lingered for a moment longer on Roxanna before turning to Natasha. "You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?"

Roxanna's eyes widened as she realized Bruce had picked up the scepter in his rant. His knuckles were white from gripping it so tight. She didn't realize her breathing had grown heavy when Fury reached for his gun. Everything had escalated so quickly, chaos was happening everywhere. She didn't know where she belonged, and she certainly felt at a loss. She wasn't a superhero or even an agent. She had thought she could help, but she hadn't realized how outmatched she was by everyone here. She wasn't of any need, use or help; she was simply a hindrance. There was nothing she could do at this moment.

Steve took a step towards Bruce. "Dr. Banner, put down the scepter," He said calmly.

Bruce narrowed his eyes curiously, confused as to what Rogers meant before glancing down at his hands when he felt the weight of something there. He was holding the scepter. How had that happened? He didn't remember picking it up... and what was he going to do with it? He wasn't sure, and everything was seeming all jumbled to him. He was growing more frustrated with each passing second; Fury's lies were being found out everytime he opened his mouth, and Bruce wasn't sure how much more he could take of this 'lockdown' they were putting him in.

"Sorry, kids. Looks like you don't get to see my party trick after all," He stated in a sarcastic voice as he set the scepter down when the computer's monitor started to beep, alerting them of the tesseract.

"Located the Tesseract?" Fury asked hopefully. Bruce nodded, and Roxanna moved to stand beside him so she could look over the readings as well.

"I can get there faster," Tony stated before Fury could give orders on who was to go retrieve the cube, but Steve shook his head.

"Look, all of us can-"

"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard, no human is a match for it," Thor stated, stopping both men's attempts at retrieving it. But of course, Tony didn't care. He turned to exit the room, but Steve grabbed his arm and stopped him.

"You're not going alone!" He snapped.

"Oh yeah? You gonna stop me?" Tony challenged as he pulled his arm out of Steve's grasp.

"Put on the suit, let's find out," Steve said, his eyes narrowed once again. Tony smirked.

"I'm not afraid to hit an old man," Was his reply.

"Put on the suit," Steve said a little louder, almost commandingly.

"You two need to knock it off," Rhea snapped as she stepped towards the two men. "You're acting like children. Just cut-"

But before she could finish her lecture to the two men, an 'oh my God' was exclaimed by Bruce before everything was turned into chaos. In the room below them, something exploded causing everyone in the room to lose their balance. The impact was so great, Steve and Tony were thrown into a wall, Rhea and Natasha were thrown into Thor and Fury into a desk. As everyone started to sit up and gain their balance back, Rhea glanced around and realized they were missing two. The platform below Roxanne and Bruce had collapsed in, causing them to fall into the boiler room below. There was no way to reach them from where the group was now.

"Put on the suit!" Steve exclaimed and Tony nodded his head as another explosion sounded, throwing their balance off. They were under attack. With Steve's help, Tony managed to stand and the two raced out of the room to see what they could do to help.

* * *

Roxanna opened her eyes and felt the world spinning around her. Her ears were ringing from the explosion, and her vision was blurry. She winced as she tried to move; something heavy was laying on top of her leg, twisting it in the process. She slowly pushed herself up to look around better, trying to see where she was. As she glanced around trying to find someone to help her, her gaze landed on Bruce. She breathed in relief, but then paused. Something didn't seem to be right... there was something off about Bruce. It was like he was struggling with something.

"Bruce?" She called softly to him, trying to get his attention. He didn't reply, he only grunted as he arched his back into the air. Roxanna stared, fixated. As a new S.H.I.E.L.D agent, she didn't quite realise the enormous danger she was in. Of course, she knew about the Hulk and she'd heard other members of the Avengers reference to his power but it never truly sunk in. To her, he had just been Bruce, the scientist who had teased her about her inability to solve a Rubik's cube. But now, she could hear him grunting and growling, his shirt becoming tighter against his skin.

"Bruce? You… You have to fight turning into it," she said, her voice timid and barely able to be heard over his struggles and the noises coming out from around the ship. "Bruce, you can't do this," Roxanna said slightly more loudly. She watched as he paused in his movements before he arched into the air, growling. Roxanna felt fear build in the pit of her stomach as she tried to pull free of the rubble.

"Bruce…" Roxanna knew that the fate of everyone on this ship depended on Bruce remaining human. Despite all his joking with Tony, there must be no way he could control this. She had to try something to soothe him so he would stay human.

"We're gonna be okay," she said, raising her voice. "Bruce, you don't have to become this thing. You're going to be okay and safe," she told him, using the words her coach had used to her after she had injured her back and was lying on the ground, crying with pain. "I swear on everything I am, Bruce. You'll be okay." Even while speaking to him, she moved against the rubble more frantically. Her small size and extreme flexibility was on her side as she managed to bend around and pull some rubble free.

"Everything that _you_are?!" Bruce yelled at Roxanna one last time before his entire body doubled in size and his face turned into an angry, green version of the man she knew. His meaning was clear; what did Roxanna know about everything that she was in comparison to his life.

Roxanna took her eyes off him for one moment and began to re-double her efforts to free herself. It turned out to be both a good and bad move. Being able to see what she was doing meant that she was able to get free of the rubble. However, the moment after she did and slid across the floor, the Hulk batted a large section of the rock to the floor, landing inches in front of Roxanna. She screamed with fright and glanced up at the angry creature. There was nothing about Bruce in him right now, all he felt was anger and he wanted a way to get it out.

So Roxanna did the first thing she could think of. She sprinted away from the room, ducking under wreckage that had fallen as a result of Loki's hit on the ship. Behind her, she could hear everything becoming utterly destroyed in the path of the Hulk. Her heart was in her throat and for the first time since entering the ship, she realised what these people, what the Avengers did. They risked their lives to protect the earth and some of them were ordinary people like Natasha. Some of them didn't choose this life like Rhea. But they did it all the same.

As she ran, Roxanna thought about hiding to the side before discarding the thought. The Hulk could rip it apart in mere seconds. She wasn't used to running for such long distances and the fear she felt was making it hard to breathe. Another deathly roar from behind her echoed around the ship before a section in front of her collapsed and she screamed again. Debris shattered off the section at a high speed, cutting into her face on her cheek. She couldn't do anything more than run and so Roxanna ran.

* * *

Meanwhile, up on deck there was absolute chaos everywhere. Once Tony had put on his suit, him and Steve had made their way down to one of the damaged engines. Steve stood facing the broken edge of the ship.

"Stark, I'm here!" he called out just as Tony appeared in his Iron Man suit and flew close to the damaged engine.

"Good. Let's see what we got," he said before staring at the engine. "I gotta get this super conducting cooling system back online before I can access the rotors and work on dislodging the debris. I need you to get to that engine control panel and tell me which relays are in overload position. What's it look like in there?" Most of what Tony had just said went straight over Steve's head but he moved over to the control panel he was talking about. There were many cords and wires running through it and Steve thought back to Tony's last question, wincing slightly as he produces his answer.

"Uh, well… It seems to run on some sort of electricity," he offered. He'd never dealt with this sort of thing before mainly because he'd never had it. Tony laughed slightly.

"Well, you're not wrong." There was a pause before Tony spoke again. "Even if I clear the rotors, this thing won't re-engage without a jump. I'm gonna have to get in there and push." Steve frowned at his words.

"But if that thing speeds up, you'll get shredded!" As much as he didn't particularly like or respect Tony, he didn't really think that the Avenger deserved to die simply by saving them all. Tony began to relay something that Steve couldn't quite comprehend.

"Speak English, please," he interjected, cutting off the Iron Man. Tony pointed to a red lever on a ledge across the broken edge of the ship.

"See that red lever? It'll slow the rotors down long enough for me to get out. Stand by it and wait for my word." With that, Tony disappeared into the large engine. However, right as Steve was about to jump across, he heard a scream. It was a terrified and helpless scream and his head jerked up. He knew it wouldn't be Rhea or Natasha so that only left one conclusion; it was Roxanna. Even though she was new to S.H.I.E.L.D. and being an agent, he knew that she would be able to handle most things that was thrown at her. In order to scream, she must believe her life was truly in danger and Steve could only think of one thing to cause that: Bruce had finally lost control.

He moved without thinking about Tony and his request, quickly making his way inside the ship. He heard another scream and crashing and ran down a flight of metal stairs. Steve was entirely focused on reaching Roxanna because he knew that she alone wouldn't be able to handle the Hulk or evade him for much longer. He rounded the corner to see a small black-clothed figure in the corner, half obscured by the Hulk's large green form. He raised his fist, ready to absolutely pulverise Roxanna into non-existence.

The moment before Steve threw his shield, he met Roxanna's eyes. She was absolutely terrified and her bright blue eyes just pleaded with him to save her. Steve threw the shield across the room with speed and it caught the Hulk's hand just as it was about to crush down on the computer hacker. The Hulk roared and spun slightly from the force of the throw and the shield hitting him, turning to face him. Steve accepted the consequence of his actions to save Roxanna immediately before he prepared himself to battle the Hulk.


End file.
